Nazca

The first trip of the day was to the airport and onboard a small plane for a flight over the Nazca Lines. C didn't go - she had heard too many reports about the lack of safety - but the rest of us were brave enough.

It was an "interesting" flight - definately not the same standards of safety that they have in North America:

• no passenger briefing (i.e. how to get out if there's a crash, where the 1st aid kit and fire extinguisher are)
• during the climb-out, the stall warning was going off almost continuously
• all the turns around the figures are steep turns and again, the stall warning was blaring, all while the pilot was looking down at the figure, never checking his instruments (a recipe for a spiral dive)

I was definately glad to have taken a gravol before the flight. H and L were in the back seat and pretty sick by the end it. The figures were easier to see in real life than in the pictures I took, but some of them worked alright.

After meeting back with V and C, we drove out to an Inca cemetery. There were two mummies in glass cases to look at in the museum, then we went to look at the mummies still sitting in their graves. Many of them had been damaged be grave robbers, as well as by the sun and wind, but they were still very well preserved. The Incas believed that the head was the seed that life came from, so most of the mummies had their heads cut off. They also had long hair (sometimes with hair from others sewn into their own) to signify their position - the longer the hair, the higher their place in society.

The third stop for the day was to learn how gold was removed from rocks and then refined. The visit was free, but the really push you to give them a tip at the end and hopefully buy something from them.

We were dropped of in Nazca to find our own lunch and I went with K, C and D to a fairly fancy hotel with good food. We didn't spend much more time in the town - there isn't much in Nazca. We squished into a cab and went back to the hotel to relax and swim in the pool.

After sunset, we headed out to have a traditional celebration meal. All the food is cooked underground for three to four hours, then there is a bit of a ceremony before it is uncovered and served. It was all very good!

After we had all stuffed ourselves full, we went off to the bus station to catch the night bus to Arequipa. The bus was about 45 minutes late, so the bus company bought us supper (which we were too full to eat). We did try the desert though - a weird jelly type of thing made from purple corn that is flavoured with cloves and cinnamon ... and has the texture of snot. It was hard to get some to stay on the spoon!

The night bus was uneventful - we were on the upper level, and the seats recline about 45 degrees back and there is a bit of a leg rest. I slept for a few hours, but woke up frequently.