The scenery switched from the fertile stepped farmlands of
eastern Perú to the
west’s sandy desert pretty quickly. We went to gas up in Abancay and found a
long line of police cars and motorcycles gassing up too. We chatted with a few
and got some advice about how to drive to Nasca. Driving through the afternoon
and evening, we were high on a plain when Ben started to get worried about gas.
There hadn’t been a service station since Abancay and we still had about 100 km
to drive to Nasca. Our gauge showed us in the red, but it’s not really
reliable, so he hoped we’d be able to make it into town.
After dark we were pulled over by the policia for a routine
check. The guy asked if all was well and started asking for this and that
paper. Ben told him we were worried about gas, and the police officer glanced
at our gauge and saw us at all the way on empty and told us forget about the
papers and to get going, we still had 40 km to Nasca.
What is this?
We inched our way west, Ben putting all his eco-driving
techniques to work, and made it to Nasca on fumes. Luckily it was almost all
downhill.
It was late and we looked for a campsite close to the Nazca Lines lookout. Ben found this little road, but it seemed to have all sorts of
weirdo folks wandering around on it. Sketchy. We decided to camp at a gas
station that had a lighted lot.
In the morning we made our way to the Nazca Lines viewing
platform. From this platform you can see El Arbol (tree) and La Mano (hand). We
paid our dollar each and climbed up the stairs. The lines are made by folks
removing all the little dark stones that are on top of the sand, leaving light
colored lines in the sand. The designs are huge and it would have been cool to
take a plane ride to see the other 70+ designs from the air.
La Mano
El Arbol
My uncle Jake is really interested in the Nazca Lines and so
Wells, who was named Aurruk after him, got him a stone that had a bunch of the
designs carved into it. The guy who sells these spent his life assisting the
late anthropologist Maria Reiche and showed me photos of him with her. It was
pretty cool.
We continued north to the oasis town of Huacachina, just
outside of Ica. Huacachina is a tiny town completely surrounded by sand dunes.
Their big industry is tourism—folks come here to walk and go sandboarding on
the dunes and also take rides in dune buggies.
We rented some boards and hiked
up onto the dunes. Since I didn’t have a board, I found a little scrap of wood
to slide down on. I actually found that it was super fun to run straight down
the dune as fast as I could. It was so steep, and I couldn’t stop laughing the
entire time. Ben and the kids said that sandboarding was a lot harder to do
than snowboarding—hard meaning that the board didn’t really want to go down the
hill very much, so it was easy to lose your momentum. Either way, it was hard work climbing up those dunes over and over again!
Keeping it classy.
Dylan
Wells
My sweet love, Ben
There are all these stray dogs, or Chachis as we call them, that
like to follow you up the dunes. The little red haired one ran after me once
when I ran down the dune and Ben was worried that she was going to bite my
ankles. She didn’t, but she sure did bark at me! It was fun.
After some lunch and wifi usage, Dylan decided she wanted to get one of those hair wraps done. It was fun to listen to her chatting it up with the guy who was doing her hair. He was impressed with how good her Spanish is. I was kinda proud to hear that.
BTW. Getting off the highway was totally hairy—there was an
abnormally HUGE unsigned speed bump on the off ramp. We flew in the air and
slammed down. The kids slept through the whole thing—they must have been pretty
tired from climbing on the dunes all day.
We arrived in Lima at about 9am and contacted our friend José Antonio (different from
the José Antonio in
Santiago). We met him in Arequipa, and he invited us to visit him in Lima. We
had breakfast with him and took some much needed showers. He told us a great story about this family painting he has of the Virgin Mary. Supposedly during the war with Chile, his great great grandfather was hiding from murderous Chilean soldiers in a hole in the wall under it, and it fell in front of the hole, covering him and saving his life. Pretty neat.
The painting is behind us.
We had some errands
to run in Lima and José Antonio helped us figure out where to go. We mailed a box of
extra stuff to the US and donated a big bag of things to a church. It felt good
to have a little extra space in the van!
Lima is famous for it's delicious food, especially it's fresh ceviche. We headed down to the pier to find some. I had to tell people, "Tranquila, necesito espacio!" or "Calm down, I need space!" People were swarming us trying to get us to eat at their restaurant. Perú can be like that, people constantly trying to sell you something, and it gets a little tiring.
Anyhoo, the food was great and the pelicans were crazy. A good stop.
QEPD: Que En Paz Descanse, or Rest in Peace
I should mention that "the sickness" made itself known in Lima when Wells started throwing up. Luckily he had mentioned feeling queasy earlier and I made him a "bucket" out of an old 1.5 liter pop bottle. Ew. He was a good sport. And then Dylan got sick. And then Ben. But I was fine. Hmm. We figured out that they had all eaten some bad Nutella that we bought. It seemed weird when Dylan opened it, but I told her it was probably fine. Oops. I don't eat nuts, so I didn't have any.
Strange Freight: A taxi filled with books!
Despite "the sickness" we continued north. We were pretty beat, and it was night and we needed to rest. We pulled off in the little beach town of Ancón, which proved to be a bit sketchy. Ben asked some police officers where we could park/camp and one of them said he had a friend with a "playa" or parking lot and maybe we could park there. They took us to him and we met the guy and he let us stay. It was all very cautious. We were glad there was a bathroom, although it was pretty nasty.
The ruins at Caral predate Machu Picchu by more than 2000 years. They are the oldest ruins in all of the Americas and are slowly being uncovered and reconstructed. Perú's new national logo, which has a swirl making the P, comes from a swirl that was found carved in a rock at Caral. It's just a little swirl, maybe as big as a hand, but it was a big anthropological find. We arrived in the morning, before it got too hot, and had a nice tour of the place.
We left Caral and found ourselves a little camp spot off the side of the highway south of Trujillo, right before dark. Since we made camp early, we decided to FINALLY use our little parrilla that we had made for us in Chile. We had been carrying around a bag of charcoal all this time and it was time to use it! I made a stew in our Dutch Oven and Dylan made a nice cake. It was great, though the three of them were pretty sick and didn't really want to eat much. We sang and played ukulele and relaxed. Just what we needed! I the morning I trimmed Ben's moustache, which had been growing into his mouth for a couple of weeks now.
In Moche, just south of Trujillo, you will find the beautiful Huacas de la Luna y Sol. Only the Huaca de la Luna is open to the public, and it is incredible. There is a museum at the university there, right at the base of the Huaca, that is great. The displays are well organized and have great English translations. These ruins show the incredible art of the Moche people. Their pottery is elegant and their relief murals are intense.
Unfortunately, after going to the museum, Ben got intensely ill. He passed out and was unconscious and vomiting. I was worried he was going to choke! The kids and I hung out in the van while he rested. When he woke up, he felt weak but well enough to tour the pyramid. Dylan and Wells stayed back, both wanting to keep close to the bathrooms. Poor things!
The Moche people built the pyramids in 6 steps over centuries, filling in the old levels with bricks and making another level on top of the old level, each time making it bigger. The thing is that they decorated each level with these beautiful murals and then covered them up, only to make them again on the new level of the pyramid. The plaza area has multiple levels of murals, all from one time, but behind this large mural, are 5 other identical murals behind it! It's hard to explain, but it's pretty amazing.
This guy reminded me of my friend Kit. The Moche was a society that cherished artists, and potters were some of the highest members of society.
These adobe bricks are all individually "signed" by the brick maker. I like the one where the guy just stuck in all his fingertips.
Here you can see both the 4th (lower) and 5th levels.
5th level murals
4th level murals
They are slowly excavating the lower "town" where the regular folks lived. You can see the Huaca del Sol in the background.
All these rooms were filled with thousands and thousands of bricks.
The top, or 6th, level. The pits are where there were columns. Right behind the guide is where the ruler had his platform, behind the doorway was where he would be dressed.
Here the mural isn't done in relief like the other levels. The figure is their god, and on each level the way it is portrayed is a little different--sometimes angry, surprised, etc.
The colors are still so vibrant!
The Plaza. This was the only part of the pyramid where the ancient public was allowed. All the other parts were for the elite.
There are the ugliest dogs living at the entrance of the pyramid. They are called the Peruvian Hairless Dog and they are a pre-Inca species that were revered. This poor guy is about the ugliest dog I have ever seen and has swollen eyes from the blowing sand and lack of adequate eyelashes. Poor guy. He seems well loved though...they even put a special doggy sunscreen on him every day!
North, north, north. We stopped in a little town to buy some pollo asado, or Chicken BBQ, and it was delicious. I found a scrawny little dog to feed our stew leftovers to and we found a little side road and began looking for a place to camp. The road we went on was supposed to go to yet another ruin, one that is off the beaten path. We figured there might be a parking lot or something, but never found it. We found a little patch off the side of the road and camped. At about 5am we started hearing traffic driving by. What the heck? We were in the middle of nowhere. We could hear motorcycles and big trucks. We got up and made breakfast and figured out what it was...we were parked next to a dump! Hahaha. I was wondering why there was so much trash. We never did see the ruins.
Morning of June 6th--our 1 year in South America anniversary!!
All over Perú, there are hand-painted propaganda signs and I wondered a lot about the people who painted them. There are also these beautifully painted trucks, which sport mostly religious scenes on them.
Strange Freight: Overflowing Sugar Cane!
Since the road was pretty mellow, I did some driving. Wells co-piloted and took all sorts of photos. We found a little beach and Dylan made some lunch while we all relaxed. Wells decided to make his own version of lunch out of sand. There were these little snails that popped out when the surf was descending, they kind of freaked me out at first! We had bought this little package of cake and finally tried it to celebrate our 1 year in South America. It was some weird anise flavored breadsticks all stacked up with syrup and hard little candies all sprinkled over it. There was supposed to be a dried fig on top, but we didn't get one. Booh.
We finally crossed the border at Tumbes into Ecuador and found a gas station to camp at in Santa Rosa. It was a mud-pit. Literally. And it was HOT and muggy with lots of mosquitoes. Oh well. It was free and there was a bathroom! Beggars can't be choosers.
