An Emmerous Adventure

I left Lima on the 15th (I think, I`ve lost track of things a bit) for Ica, where I wasn´t actually going, where I was going was Huacachina, an Oasis in the desert.
What I didn´t realise about peru is that there are big sandy party with huge sand dunes that are very dry and have Oasises in them. The peruvians called it the Costa I think. Between Lima and Ica, it´s all basically sand dunes from the outskirts of Lima onwards. On the bus, as per usual, a few people asked me where I was from. I talked to one of these women for about 2 hours (completely in Spanish, she knew no english, partly with the help of my phrasebook dictionary.) She was really nice, 30 with 3 daughters. Maricielo (I think) was going to Ica with her aunt to sell kids clothes to people at the markets. We talked about Peru, Australia, me needing to be careful of men in south america, me being set up with her brother (I think) and comparing eye colous amongst other things. She offered to give me a lift from Ica to Huacachina, so when we got to Ica, myself, her aunt a guy who was her friend and Maricielo all get into a little car. first we went to where she was selling the clothes and I waited with the aunt and she bought me a packet of chips. After a while they came back and we headed to Huacachina. On our way through Ica I saw the local markets and small food stalls with long tables where locals sat and ate together. I was really happy that I got to see a side of Ica that I wouldn´t have if i had got a taxi by myself to Huacachina. Huacachina was ok, i stayed in a dodge hotel that i won´t tell you about.
The next day I went sandboarding, which was AMAZING. Think of the best rollercoaster in the world, but with no tracks, that was the buggy ride. we went headfirst down giant dunes. I heartily reccomend it, it was so much fun.
Laer that day I headed back to Ica and got on a bus for Nazca. This bus was … hmmm…. not as healthy as the other bus, though from the same company. When we went up hills (and by that i mean 10 degree inclines, we went really slowly. Once we had to get out and walk to the top of the hill, and the next time it actually killed the bus and a new one was sent. This was all amongst the most beautiful country, huge plains and big mountains interspersed with spots of green. This may be a good time to let you all know that I accidently deleted the photos from the first week of my trip. But i took lots today so i will still try to post some.
In Nazca I get drawn in by a guy called Elvis who showed me some hostels and who i organised my Nazca lines trip through. It was all ok, of the other people who i spoke to who were also getting the same thing i seem to have gotten an ok deal. It´s better to go to all the companies yourself and ask around, and to deal directly with guides etc.. for tours. Some people got really ripped off unfortunatly. That night I went to the Planetarium and saw a presentation and looked through a telescope at saturn and jupiter. It was strange to see the southern cross so far from home. I met some British people there and one suggested the Maria Reiche centre as another place to go. 3 of us went, and here begins the craziest thing that has happened to me so far…

It was about 8 or so at night and a woman lead us the short way to the centre. There was a woman outside standing in the middle of the crossroads, this turns out to be Viktoria Nikitizhi herself, the woman who was a collegue of maria Reiche, the foremost expert on the Nazca lines for something like 50 years. Viktoria lead us into the `centre´which is actually just a shack with a big diorama of the lines and some pictures. Two black kittens wandered around.
When we asked the woman where she came from she said:
the cosmos
When we asked how long she had been here she said:
3000 years
When we said that she should probably know the secret of the lines then, she said:
Who says i don´t
It was a completely bizarre experience, she railed against UNESCO, the planiterium, the tour operators. She seems to have gone quite nuts from spending so much time by herself focusing on one thing.
So we escaped and went for some pisco sours with some germans.
This morning I did the flight over the Nazca lines, which was good, a real experience to go up in the tiny plane. Met lots of New Zealanders, they seem to be taking over the world.
I met 2 Columbian women who were really nice who i had lunch with, we also went on a tour of a pre-ince necropolis, which i have photos of.
Tired of typing, and that´s about it, so I´ll go, off on a bus to Arequipa tonight. Sorry for the very long entry, it´s been a busy couple of days.
I´ll try for photos now.

Tags: Travel

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 17th, 2007 at 5:34 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.