Peruvian Adventure

i have no idea how i am going to keep up with the experiences weve been having. also, i have to go without capital letters or apostrophes because i don{t understand the keyboards here. the bracket means an apostrophe. sorry. okay, so we were planning on leaving huacachina when a guy that worked at the hostel told us his friend was headed to nazca, and for ten soles, he could take us. i know, i know, it sounds dangerous but he was a guide for tour groups, and it was faster, cheaper, and probably safer for our stuff. anyhow, it turned out to be the best thing we ever did. he was able to show us so much and we got to listen to all this great music of peru. dad, you would be very impressed with his cornering. he{s crazy, but he may be the best driver we{ve had. anyhow, as we entered nazca valley, he showed a formation in the rocks called the face of inca, or the incan face, i dont{ really remember. the valley was this fertile farmland around the rio grande (or not so grande in cass{s opinion). he also pulled over to give us a demonstration about the insect larva found on cactus that the people of the valley used to crush and dye their textiles. he told us about the different types of flights we could take over the lines and then took us to the mirador, a tower to see two of the figures. the figures of hands and trees were the only things we could see from the tower, but the really sad thing is that the panamerica goes right through one of the figures. which cass and i think is really sad and telling. anyhow, we went out that night with our guide and his friend to a reunion for tour guides and we ate some very peruvian food, at least i think it was really peruvian. we ate yucca, beets, and a meat i couldn{t really identify. my guide is bugging me right now to talk about our route to arequipa. anyhow, to finish quickly, he arranged two flights, so that both cass and i could go up as copilots in a small, four passenger plane where we could really see the lines. the plane banked hard and it was the craziest flight i{d ever been on. afterwards, we went to a cemetary (and i of course thought of you, dad). the tombs there had been robbed a thousand times over, but what was left was incredible. the people of nazca had hair several feet long, and it is still on the skulls. and there are a bunch of mummies, and bones all over the ground. broken bones and pieces of ceramic. it{s the craziest thing. in the tombs, there were private spaces, communal spaces, and familial plots. i have so much to say on that, but not time in which to say it. we also saw gold and ceramic processes and then went dancing again. today, we{ve talked our guide into coming with us to arequipa. i should stop calling him our guide because he is like our old friend and i feel like i{m planning a road trip back home. i{m sorry to say that i don{t know how to spell his name, but it{s like newman in english. he is awesome. he even made us say whisky, like grandpa john, when we were taking a picture. thank you for all your postings. grandma, your spanish is better than mine, dad, you are the star of the graveyard, laura your kindergarten stories kill me, and mom i love you. xoxoxo d

 Print This Post

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 2nd, 2005 at 11:43 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.