3rd September - Nazca to Arequipa

Next morning we were up bright and early for our flight over the Nazca lines. Unfortunately, as soon as we stepped outside we realised that there was a slight problem with the weather. It was very overcast. We sat in the hotel lobby and waited. The time for our collection came and went. We began to wonder whether anything was going to happen and what if the clouds didn't shift. Some people headed off for breakfast, while others returned to the rooms to pack our stuff. Others remained in the lobby, waiting.

We had been there for about 2 hours when the first speck of blue sky appeared through the clouds. Within minutes there was a bus waiting for us. We were whisked to the airport and sat down in front of a video. We got to watch about half of that before they decided we had obviously seen enough and took 3 of us to an airplane. It was a small, white Cessna and we were loaded on board. Safety briefings were scant and I couldn't find the in-flight magazine, but otherwise it seemed air-worthy.

We shot down the runway, with the pilot twiddling dials and writing things on his bit of paper as we climbed into the air. He provided a map of the lines which we would see and then performed an hour of amazing aerial acrobatics such that we could see everything. We passed over the spider, the monkey, the hand, the tree, the hummingbird, etc, etc.. With each one, the pilot skillfully managed to get the shadow of the plane to line up with the lines such that we could actually spot them. Somewhat like a magic eye picture, they can be a little hard to see at first, but then, once you've seen them, you wonder how you could ever have missed them. After a really enjoyable flight, we landed (extremely smoothly) and taxied back to our parking spot. Just as we got out, the girls and Jamal were due to take off. Although tempted to try and make it look as though we'd had a really rough time and that we hadn't seen a thing, our enthusiasm for the flight was written all over our faces and so we had to indicate that they would have a brilliant time. After a few photos with our plane, we bought some postcards and sat writing them outside the airport terminal.

Luckily, just before we had cooked completely, the girls and Jamal arrived back. Four of us then left in the taxi to return to the hotel. We waited for the other 2 in the courtyard. They took a while returning (they had been discussing whether or not they intended to pay airport tax) but once they did, we were ready to venture deeper into Nazca. We left our luggage in the safe room and then, after returning to the courtyard to collect the jacket that Lyndsey had forgotten in the excitement of leaving the luggage, we set off.

We took a wander up the main street to the Plaza de armas, around the plaza and then back to a little café we had spotted along the route. We had a fantastically funny meal. After each ordering six separate meals from the 'sandwiches' menu, the girl returned with two of what looked like chicken and chips. Having given these out, she returned to the kitchen and returned with another portion of chicken and chips and 2 side orders of chips, which, despite the fact that Chris already had a plate of chicken and chips, he claimed as his own. By this stage, the waitress must have thought we were very rude for we were all reduced to raucous laughter (especially at Chris and his 3 portions of chips), but eventually 2 sandwiches and another plate of food arrived and we managed to figure out that not everything on the sandwich menu was a sandwich and that the various different methods of cooking chicken all resulted in something that looked suspiciously like it had been fried. Another factor in this debacle was that the music that was being played much too loudly through the wicker wall was stuck on repeat and so every 90 seconds or so the thing would loop around. The only thing was that, due to the type of music it was, you didn't really notice until the tune was etched on your brain.

After lunch, we spent an hour at the local Internet café (with Lyndsey, in the excitement of getting online, accidentally disconnecting a complete row of users by kicking the power switch), following which, we headed to a local supermarket to get some supplies for the bus journey that afternoon. Someone spotted a huge amount of Fanny, a manufacturer of tinned fish, and so I made a purchase of some tuna and some of Victoria's Choco-Bum biscuits. We then trundled back to the bus station via the Hotel.

As before, the bus was delayed and so we spent some time in the bus station. We watched the children playing with their toy cars, James spoke to a small shoe-shining boy in Spanish and I ended up getting completely our of my depth trying to talk French to a couple from near Lyon. At one point they were asking me how much I had paid for a tour of a cemetery that I had accidentally told them I had done (despite the fact that I had done nothing of the sort). They weren't satisfied that I didn't know and so I ended up turning to Chris, who hadn't been listening and telling him in very fast English to just "Shake your head and say no!" This he did, following which they seemed satisfied that we couldn't remember.

The bus eventually arrived and James boarded first, quickly evicting a mother and her babe-in-arms from one of our seats (he didn't actually slap her, just gave her withering looks till she moved). We had been warned in advance that the journey up to Arequipa could be cold at night and so we had prepared for the worst. The bus departed Nazca somewhat late and, much to our surprise given that we were traveling with a different bus company, appeared to be playing the same video of scantily clad women shaking their thing as on the bus on the day before. Although the bus did drive well into the night, stopping just once at a horrible roadside café which stank of urine (for the obvious reason that people were jumping off the bus and immediately reaching for their flies), we were actually roasted on board. We arrived at about 2am and spent some time trying to relocate the contents of Lyndsey's rucksack which had exploded in the hold. Several Peruvians had attempted to help themselves to the goodies but Lyndsey was watching carefully. As she said herself, "What would a Peruvian need Clinique for??" Thinking we were near the hostel, we ignored the taxi drivers and headed off to the right. The fact that this was a dead end should have been a clue that we were lost, but, thinking we knew better, we headed out past all the taxi drivers again and started to head off into the night.

Within about 5 minutes it became apparent that we didn't actually have the first notion as to where we where, never mind where the Hostel was. We stopped to have a think about the situation and were approached by a somewhat rotund taxi driver. Given that we had just reached the conclusion that we didn't have a hope of finding the Hostel ourselves, and that he was offering to take us all there for only S/.3, we decided to take a chance. He was driving a big old Peugeot and, on our acceptance of his offer, he took the back seat off the roof-rack and fitted it in the car. We then piled all the rucksacks into the boot and all 6 of us, like sardines, managed to clamber in. I began to suspect he was going to take us to some unlit wasteland and then either sumo-wrestle us for our possessions or, more likely, just pull a gun on us, but surprisingly, he did actually take us to the right Hostel and we crashed into our reserved room for 6 people.