Monday, June 17, 2019

Day 4 - Nazca

these things they happened a long time ago
we're different people now and things have changed
Dear Thomas Wolfe - Damien Jurado

Day 3 was spent exploring Nazca. We went there mainly to see the Nazca Lines. Unlike Machu Picchu which I've known since I don't know how long, Nazca Lines were something that I found by chance and maybe just less than 3 years ago. I often have Wikipedia at the ready in one of my browser's tab and one day the main page featured Nazca Lines. I was fascinated and really wanted to go and see this, but even then I realized it might not be feasible. It could be something that's logistically hard to do. Then when I found out about Peru Hop and how this is en route in their itinerary, so I was like this could actually happen and it became another reason why I thought using Peru Hop would be beneficial.

The best way to see the lines are by taking a flight in a small plane. To make it for the flight, we actually had to make our way to Nazca separate from the Peru Hop bus. The bus leaves Huacachina late in the day at around 1 PM. It will take people to visit a Pisco vineyard first and then it will arrive in Nazca at around 7 pm. Before reaching Nazca, it will stop at a viewing tower which people can climb to see around 2 or 3 of the geoglyphs. I wanted to see the whole thing and so we're going to take the flight. Peru Hop suggests people who are interested in the flight to go to Nazca in the morning and then join the bus later on in the evening to continue with the next leg of the journey. I guess you can still follow the Peru Hop's schedule and spend a night in Nazca, but I didn't want to do that. We missed the vineyard visit, but I think that's alright. The good thing with Peru Hop is that they could arrange a shuttle to take us to Nazca at 08:30 AM and they would take our luggages in the bus. I'm appreciative that they made this easier for us.

So that day, me and Gioia managed to wake up early enough for us to have breakfast and explore Huacachina a bit. She chose pancakes for breakfast and I chose omelette. My omelette was kinda small, but perhaps it's good that my breakfast wasn't heavy. Then since we had time, we went to walk around the lake a bit. It was misty and foggy in the morning. I don't know the difference between the two, so I chose both words. The sand dunes were covered by the fog and the mist or fog were rolling on top of the lake's surface too. It was quiet in the morning, very few people walking around, it was quite peaceful. I saw there were already some people on top of the dunes, I wondered if they were there for the sunrise. I wondered if they saw anything because of the fog. Some of the people were there for sandboarding. I guess it's nice to do this when it's not crowded.

After that me and Gioia wheeled our luggages to the meeting point. Waited for our guide to appear, passed him our luggages, filled in a form, and then we got in the shuttle van. There were not many people making the trip to Nazca that day. The van wasn't full. I think there were only 6 of us. By the way, before we departed I took 2 motion sickness pills. The experience the day before in Ballestas Islands really shook me and I also recalled that time I took a small plane in Lake Tekapo where I had motion sickness too, so to really prevent that from happening again, I took 2 pills. The instruction said 1-2 pills, so I just took the upper limit. I took them before reaching Nazca because the pills often make me really drowsy and I didn't want to fall asleep while on the plane. Also just in case I got car sick, I reasoned it's better to take them early to avoid any mishap. Strangely I didn't feel sleepy at all during the ride to Nazca.

We should be arriving at around 11 AM, but we were late. The van took us straight away to the airport in Nazca. There was a bit of confusion when we arrived because I didn't book the flight with Peru Hop and I couldn't find my person. Everyone at the small airport tried to help us though and in the end the guy I booked with found us. He became our guide for the rest of the day too. I didn't book with Peru Hop because their recommended airline has some bad reviews and also because they only offer flight over the Nazca lines, while I want to see Palpa lines too. I've come this far, I should go all the way. It costs 200 USD / person and during June - August, it costs a bit more. I don't think the airport was super busy that day, but it did seem like they had a steady stream of flights maybe every 15-30 minutes. Of course for the airlines to make this cost-effective, they have to make sure the plane is full before departing. So we had to wait awhile. There's some TV playing a video explaining how the lines were made. Here I became nervous about the flight because so many people talked and wrote about the bad motion sickness they got that I decided to take another drug. I didn't take the motion sickness pill again because I didn't want to overdose and again because of the sleepiness it causes, instead I opted for my vertigo medication. I don't know if it's suitable, but I think overall all the drugs helped me. Gioia took one motion sickness pill before arriving and since she became not confident as well, she also decided to take another one. My guide thought we should be fine because we would have digested our breakfast. I don't know, the day before I overheard story about a girl puking and puking even though she didn't eat much before the flight. Anyway after some time finally our turn arrived. My guide was giving us some last-minute advice, like just look at your window, don't try to look at the other side and if you're getting dizzy, try to focus on a center point. At this point, I could only hope for the best :)

I re-read my experience in Lake Tekapo before writing this because I kinda forgot how big the plane was then. It turns out the plane size is exactly the same. The Nazca plane is also for 8 people exactly. There were 2 pilots and 6 passengers. Me and Gioia sat at the right hand side and again I was assigned the seat at the back. Before the flight, one of the pilot was explaining what's going to happen and if anyone felt motion sickness, he had some cotton balls with alcohol that we could ask to help us with the motion sickness. I couldn't see if he's piloting the plane as well or if his sole purpose was to narrate the trip and made sure everyone was okay. In each seat there's a headset for you to listen to the pilot telling us what we're seeing.

As we took off and rose higher, I thought I don't know if I could survive this and how I don't want to be in a small plane anymore. It's not that I was hit with motion sickness straightaway, but it's just that there's really an uncomfortable feeling. I think this flight was also more difficult than the Lake Tekapo flight. During the Lake Tekapo flight, I just looked out the window and everything was pretty. It's not that hard to take pictures. For example if this entire Nazca flight was about taking pictures like below, it may not be so hard on the equilibrium.

A Nazca flight is not like that however. You are looking at things below. To make sure you get a good look, the pilot will tilt the plane twice, so that both sides can see clearly. If you want to have a better look or like me you want to take a good picture, you would further turn your body from facing forward to really face the window. I think this action was actually the one that's hardest for my body. You know another thought that came to mind was that what if I actually didn't get what the pilot was pointing at, luckily I did. I looked at the pictures I took for this trip, there's photographic evidences of all the lines and geoglyphs as shown in the map that we're given. We actually saw more, there are things that's not in the map I got. Gioia heard that there are a lot of lines spread out throughout the mountainous desert and it's possible that there are more to be discovered. The Nazca flights get you to see the ones which are quite nearby to each other I think. Here are some the lines. There's the whale, astronaut (my favorite because it's so human and cute), monkey, and spider.

By the way, the landscape view is also beautiful, the land is so arid. This picture is from the early part of the flight. You know even with all the drugs I took, it's still wasn't easy. At one point the girl next to me asked for the cotton balls with alcohol and I was like, man, I hope she's not gonna throw up. I wanted to ask her if she's okay but I was also concerned with myself. I was trying to keep it together. Another source of discomfort was when the plane tilted to the other side, you're kinda directly below of a blinding bright sun. There were moments when I just closed my eyes because that's the only thing I could do to try to calm myself. The pilot was kinda worried I think, he was asking and asking if everyone was okay and needed the cotton ball.

We saw a lot and then it's off to see the Palpa Lines. These are older than the Paracas lines and this one below show the Paracas family. For the Palpa Lines, the plane only tilted to my side. I then realized that it's most probably because the rest didn't sign up for this, but there they were, they had to sit and suffer through this flight longer because of me and Gioia :D By the way aside for the pilots, the lady next to Gioia was like the most unaffected, she was amazing. I noticed that as we got to the Palpa lines, my pictures were getting so much blurrier. I think I just couldn't hold it steady anymore.

After the Palpa lines, I thought we're done, that was until the pilot said, next the aqueducts. I was like, gosh there's more to this. I totally forgot about this. I was ready for the flight to be over, but at least this was the last one, after this we're done. These aqueducts are very interesting though. Nazca is a desert and they don't have a lot of rains. Our guide told us that these aqueducts are important and even now they're still using and maintaining them for their fresh water supply.

After that we're really done. It's truly not easy. 2 people threw up in my flight. I think it's very common in each flight to have someone throw up. I think I hold myself better than the flight in Lake Tekapo. I experienced a lot of discomfort, I noticed I was having cold sweats at my back, but at least I didn't have an urge to throw up unlike the flight in Lake Tekapo. Also as mentioned, I saw everything and had photographic evidences. So is this worth doing? I guess I'm glad I did it, I'm definitely thankful that I survived it. The only way this would be worth it for you is if you can be sure you will not get motion sickness. Imagine taking the flight and spending the whole time closing your eyes not seeing anything, then it would be a waste right. The thing is if you have never been in a small plane, how can you be sure that you'll be alright? Drug yourself as much as you can I think :D Mind you, I survived after taking 3 drugs and I was so happy when we're back on solid ground. I talked to the pilot a bit after we're done and it is enviable that they didn't feel a thing. The pilot even said he really enjoyed the maneuvering *sigh*

After the flight my original plan was to check in to a hostel and relax, maybe take a nap before we had to meet the Peru Hop bus in the evening and start on the dreaded overnight bus journey. Gioia however felt like we should be exploring more things. So I said, okay you talk to the guide and decide. I know that there are 3 options: visiting Cantalloc Aqueducts, Cahuachi Ceremonial Center, or Chauchilla Cemetery. None of this particularly interested me so I thought let Gioia decide, surprise me. She chose to see the mummies, so we're going to the Chauchilla Cemetery. The guide left us at the airport for awhile to pick up 2 other people. We didn't feel like having a big lunch also there's not much option available. So we just had small snacks. Then it's off to the cemetery. The cemetery compound is in this big open space. A distance away, there are mountains with interesting colours. By the way, in general I think mountains in Peru often have different kinds of element or mineral in them that many of them have different colours in them.

If I can describe the cemetery, it's like there are blocks of spaces underground where the mummies are buried. They are buried with things like bowl, corns, or other things they may need. Sometime there are more than 1 mummy in the block, they can be a family. We also saw a baby mummy. Since the compound is very big, there are many of these kind of blocks, but they have been raided and artifacts had been stolen and sold.

Our guide had a good way of explaining things. There's a CSI aspect to his method. He often asked us to describe what we could tell about the person based on what we saw. On one block we saw a bad person mummy. The mummy was placed upside down and the guide said in the mouth of that mummy there's a fossilized poop / coprolite. I learned something new then, I didn't know such thing exists. Anyway, that's a severe way to end, but you may also think that at least his people made the effort to bury him. They could have just let the bad person be eaten by wild animals or left out in the desert, but they made an effort to mummify him. I do wonder sometime, if only we can talk to ancient people and ask why they did what they did. Why did the Nazca people make all those geoglyphs? Where did the inspiration come from? The designs look quite modern. Did the seers of ancient time see that people from thousand of years in the future would love seeing this and hence they made this to please people from our time? Did the people tasked to remove the soils day after day wonder if there's a purpose to what they're doing? It's laborious work in the desert. This took a lot of effort. Nazca is interesting and I'm glad we made the trip there. For pictures, please go here.

After that our guide dropped us at the cafe where we would be picked up by Peru Hop. Me and Gioia walked around a bit for dinner and then we went back to the cafe to wait for the pick up at around 7 pm. Here we also met and chatted with the couple who shared the shuttle with us that morning. They're waiting for the bus to arrive to collect their bags. They're spending a night there while we're moving on to Arequipa. The bus was again rather full. Me and Gioia got to sit together though. I couldn't tell you much about the trip to Arequipa because it's dark, so I couldn't see what's outside. I did recall we stopped a few times, maybe for fuel, maybe the driver needed to pee. By the way, remarkably me and Gioia didn't need to use the toilet that night. I couldn't say I slept much during the trip. I just closed my eyes and maybe I did doze off here and there. By the time we arrived it was getting so cold that my feet were freezing. That's a story for the next post.

:) eKa @ 8:59:00 PM •