Peru2

October 16 - November 12, 2004

Nasca (October 17, 2004)

The Nasca Lines are geometric shapes and animals drawn in giant proportion on the desert floor by a series of ancient civilizations between 900 BC and 630 AD, and are still regarded as a great scientific mystery. Their creation is no great engineering feet like building a pyramid or constructing an ancient highway system. The builders simply removed dark stones to reveal the white sand beneath. The mystery is why they did it. In modern times, the lines weren't discovered until airline pilots spotted them in the 1920s. In fact, a highway was built right over the lizard's tail without anyone even taking notice of the lines. So, it seems that these ancient civilizations could not have possibly actually seen their great works for themselves!

We took a small plane that flew us above several of the shapes. From the sky, there is no doubt what some of them are like the spider and the monkey. Other than a small bit of motion sickness from the small plane, I really enjoyed this. The 6-seater plane swooped back and forth over the whale, the dog, the condor and various other animal and geometric shapes, tilting to show passengers on the right side and then tilting the other way for those of us on the left.

We also went to a lecture at a local hotel that told us some of theories behind the lines. I like the ideas that they're built for spacemen or that the shaman of the tribes took drugs and believed they floated above the lines during religious ceremonies. Other modern theories say that it is a giant calendar of some sort, or they were asking the gods to send water with lines and shapes pointing in the direction of potential water sources.

In order to get an up close look at the lines, Shannon and I flagged down a bus to take us out to a lookout point where the highway passed over the lizard's tail. From ground level, I understand why the lines had never been noticed. There really is nothing to see, but some rifts in the sand. Climbing a observation platform, we could make out the figures. Perhaps the ancients had viewing platforms too?

After our flight, David had to return to Lima to go home, and Shannon and I were so exhausted from continuous travel, that we crashed in the dirty, desert dry town of Nasca for another 5 days. We believe that we may be the first ever to spend that many nights in our hotel because after a couple of days, the owner got nervous and started wanting our payment by the day. We watched the other tourists come into town, see the lines, and then leave the next day. The streets were littered with trash and reeked of urine. Throughout poorer areas, we've found that men urinating in the streets isn't so uncommon, but normally rain prevents the odor from building up excessively. Here in the desert, it never rains, and the smell never goes away. The town offered a decent Internet cafe -- where I experienced one of the very frequent earthquakes -- and a few acceptable restaurants, but our hotel was like a little oasis. We had an enclosed courtyard with a pool, flowers, shade, and hammocks. We were comfortable and happy.

Read Shannon's blog: Nasca

Huacachina (October 22, 2004)

After resting up in Nasca, we were ready to get on the move again. We visited Huacachina, an oasis in middle of the southern desert. Once a high-dollar weekend getaway for the wealthy in Lima, it is now home to a couple of $2 per night hostels, which offer dune buggy and sand-boarding tours to backpackers passing through from Lima. The dune buggy took us up into dunes where we saw nothing but sand in all directions. Then we stopped to do a little sand boarding. Our guide lubed up a modified snow board with plenty of wax, and we went flying down the hills. The buggy picked us up at the bottom a few times and drove us back up for another run. On a couple of runs, we laid belly-down for a super fast run. I preferred the belly method.

On the way out of town, we stopped at El Catador bodega, where they grow their own grapes to produce wine and pisco.

Read Shannon's blog: Ica

Paracas (October 23, 2004)

Unfortunately, I had my new digital camera in my pocket when I took a roll in the sand back in Huacachina, and it became jammed with sand and refused to turn on any more. We decided the best bet was to go back to Lima and look for a repair shop or a replacement camera. On the way, we stopped off in Paracas, and believe it or not, we had more bad camera luck. After our visit to Paracas, Shannon's camera was stolen so we lost most of the pictures from here.

From the town of Paracas, we visited the Islas Ballestas, known by some as the poor man's Galapagos, because of the abundance of animal life. On a short boat tour, we saw penguins, sea lions, and many kinds of birds. At one time, the guano, or dung, produced by the millions of birds was a major Peruvian export used as fertilizer. Nowadays, the excavation is limited to only one meter every 3 years to help preserve the marine life.

On a land tour, I visited some more of the coastline to see the stone arches and try to catch a far-off glimpse of pelicans.

Read Shannon's blog: Paracas

Huaraz (October 27, 2004)

I found a shop in Lima that promised that they could fix my camera. Although my camera is Pentax, I trusted that them being an Authorized Sony Repair Center was a good indication that they could do the work. The repair was expected to take a week while they order parts. Rather than spend another whole week in Lima, we decided to return north to go on a hike that I didn't have time to do earlier in the trip. The base for hiking in the area is cool and rainy Huaraz.

Read Shannon's blog: Huaraz

...We were in Huaraz on Halloween night. Who knew they celebrated Halloween in Peru! It was interesting because instead of going door-to-door in their neighborhoods, the costumed children were going to the shops and restaurants in the strip malls in the town center, and the shopkeepers were handing out candy. And instead of shouting ¨Trick-or-treat!¨, they were shouting ¨Halloweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeen!¨

Santa Cruz (November 6, 2004)

The Santa Cruz hike is a 4-day trek starting from 3000 meters (9800 feet) above sea level, circling a mountain range with a snowy pass at an altitude of 4750 meters (15,600 feet), and then descending back to the original altitude. It is fascinating to see the rough desert landscape on the west side of the range contrasted by the plush green on the side protected from the winds from the Atlantic Ocean. Typically from the peak, hikers are rewarded with a view of the numerous surrounding snow capped peaks of the Cordillera Blanca, but since we were here at the beginning of rainy season, we saw nothing but thick clouds.

It was cool, rainy, and foggy for most of the hike and cold at night. On the third day, we made our highest ascent in the morning fog into a light snow sprinkling the peak, hiked down a steep, slick stone path in pouring rain, lunched under a stone ledge, trudged through thick mud, followed the path for hours down through the center of a rocky stream until finally leveling off to a mild 2-hour hike across beautiful green pastures with singing birds, goats, and grazing wild horses.

While it wasn't a luxury hike like the Inca Trail, we did have mules to carry the equipment, and a porter to prepare our very basic meals of sandwiches and soup. While on the Inca Trail hike we hiked only about 6-7 hours per day in 2-3 hour periods, here we pushed 9 or more hours the first couple of days with only a short lunch break. This was my toughest hike and Shannon's first!

Read Shannon's blog: Santa Cruz

Lake Titicaca (November 6, 2004)

Islas Uros

After the hike in Huaraz, we retrieved my camera in Lima, and went south to Lake Titicaca, famed as the "highest navigable lake in the world", whatever that means. We took an excellent two-day boat tour of the islands that included spending one night with a family on Amantami Island.

Read Shannon's blog: Lake Titicaca

...Our first stop was the Uros, or the “floating islands”. The people of the Uros islands use reed which grows in the lake to build their homes, boats, and the actual islands themselves! The reed is thickly matted together to create these tiny, floating islands. As the reed on the bottom rots, new reed is added to the top. The surface of the island is spongy, and at some places, difficult to walk on!

There are currently thirteen families living on the first island we visited. There is very little on the island other than their homes, teepees or huts with very minimal furniture (also made of reed), and souvenir stalls at which they sell handmade crafts to the visiting tourists. The residents earn their living by fishing, hunting, and selling these souvenirs. There is no electricity, or even drinking water, on the island.

We took a dragon-headed reed boat to the second Uros island we visited. That island was much like the first, except a little larger, and there was a single telephone on the island. All together, there are only a few hundred people currently living on the Uros islands on Lake Titicaca.

Isla Amantami

After four hours by slow motor boat, we reached Isla Amantami, where we were greeeted by our host family who had several activities planned for us that night. The island has about 4,000 residents, all farmers growing dozens of varieties of what they call potatoes. Our host mother told me that they briefly had electricity during the Fujimori regime in the 90s. The tourism program in which we took part gave a small extra income to over a hundred families who, on average, each host a couple of guests per week. In addition to the few dollars a day that we paid to stay with the family, we brought extra sugar, rice, and coffee for our hosts.

Isla Taquile

The interesting thing on this island is that the women do the majority of the daily farm work and the men do the weaving! The men's hats indicate their marital status. A single man's hat is only patterned on the bottom half, while a married man's hat is patterned to the tip. Also the married men carry a woven purse around their waste for holding cocoa leaves, which the exchange with their friends as a sort of handshake.