Happy New Year!

Dec 30th

As mentioned in the “Visitor Visa story” we embark on our day of travel at 12:30pm, so a late start for sure. We travel South on the Pan America Highway, which is follows the Pacific Coastline which is very barren and dry. The popular story about the climate is that it never rains in this part of the country, even in the winter. The best they get for moisture is high humidity in the winter months and maybe a heavy mist, but no real rain to wash away the grime. For that reason there is a certain odor in the air that reminds you how dirty things can get, and that does not include the ever present layer of dust. Pisco is claimed to be the founding place of the Peruvian drink Pisco Sour (which tastes like a lime Margarita) and is also a popular beach resort. After driving around town a bit we decided to move on to something more appealing. Our day ended at another beach town just a bit farther South called Paracas.

 

The bay at Paracas is filled with fishing boats and relatively large tour boats.

 

The tour boats are used to transport people out on whale watching tours and for us to the Isla Ballestas to see the sea lions, penguins, and numerous type of birds.

The tour is about 2 ½ hours so we are back to the Hotel at by 10:30 and there is not much else to do here as far as we can tell so we are on the road by 11:00. Today should be a busy day, as we plan to ride to Nasca to see the petroglyphs. Nobody seems to know for sure how they got where they are but there are lots of theories from the Inca’s to Aliens but as with any ancient artifact the story of its meaning is just a story.

One of the sights along the way is the oasis of Huacachina, this is a small spot in the desert that has a small lagoon as a center-piece. The lagoon is surrounded by a few hotels, restaurants, and dune buggy rental companies. You can even rent a snowboard and ride down the dunes back to town. There are lots of backpackers in the small settlement so it must be written up in the tour books.

Along the way we catch up to another big bike with Peru plates, we caught up because they are stopped for gas. The couple were riding a shiny KTM 1150SE, then as we are filling our bikes another KTM pulls in. This bike has California plates but the rider is from Sweden, Anders is riding solo around South America so it is only natural for a lively conversation to start about his experiences.

We decide it best to get into Nasca as we want to take the little plane tour of the lines. We all ride together into town and wave good-bye to the Peru couple after they point us to a hotel, the hotel is over priced so we find a nice family Hotel with bike parking, unload our gear and head to one of the many tour companies to get some info. We are shocked that we can get on a tour in about 20 minutes, we sign up, get weighed and are wisked away to the airport. Yes, weighed, these are small Cesna planes and the weight is critical for balance but more importantly for load capacity.

A nice young lady from Lima joins our group so that the four passenger plane is full and balanced. The whole experience takes a while to process, just 30 minutes ago we were on a motorcycle, now we are in plane looking down at these ancient geological relics. Over the years the lines have been driven over a few times but they are still clearly visible, just under the wing the co-pilot/guide keeps telling us. Then here it is again under the other wing she says. This is possible due to the aerial acrobatics of the pilot, they fly with a GPS and when they are over the symbol they just bank the plane hard to one side and point at it with the wing. While this is happening the guide is explaining which symbol we are looking at, then here is the same symbol under the other wing for the passengers on that side of the plane. For some passengers the plane ride is half the fun, for the others there are “little plastic bags in the seat back compartment for your vomiting needs”. I came very close to using the little baggy but lucky for everyone else in the plane the tour was finished and we were flying level and straight back to the airport. I guess I should have ate something before doing numerous figure eights in a mosquito. Brenda however loved every second of it, the plane, the lines everything. Anders, who seemed a bit indifferent at first was all smiles by the end, he thought this was a great way to start 2014, I had a hard time convincing him it was New Years Eve, not Jan 1^st. This worked out well for him as he decided to celebrate NYEve a second time. After riding in the heat most of the day and then the airplane ride and a nice meal, none of us made it to mid-night. Happy New Year!!

The Hummingbird