Nazca PotteryAt breakfast the next morning, we discovered that Peruvians are not coffee drinkers. However, coffee was readily available and generally very good. We also quickly discovered that Peru has great fresh fruit and juices. During the entire trip, whatever juice we ordered appeared to be fresh squeezed. Is it a sign of a more advanced culture when all the juice is either from concentrate or sweetened with high fructose corn syrup?
After breakfast, we were off to the Chauchilla Cemetery. We soon passed one of the world’s biggest sand dunes (over 3000 feet high), and then turned off into the desert about a half mile until we arrived at our destination. The Cemetery represents a pre-Inca civilization which mummified their dead and buried them in sitting positions. Twelve graves have been excavated. Unfortunately, long before formal excavations began, the locals discovered the site and dug up many of the graves looking for gold. In fact, this apparently still goes on at night and one can see many indentations in the sand where holes have been dug.
Next, we drove back towards town and stopped at a shop where the owner makes Nazca styled pottery patterned after ancient pottery found in the area. All the paints are made from local plants. We bought a few pieces to take home with us. The owner looks like a character out of a movie but I don’t know which one! He used to be a baker but learned the art of Nazca pottery from his wife who no longer works because of her poor eye sight.
Wanna dig for gold? Most of the local mining is done by individual prospectors using primitive tools and involving back-breaking labor. All you have to do is just hike up into the barren mountains nearby, manually dig, pick and blast out rock, put it into sacks and carry it out. Then you take the rock to one of several extracting businesses in town, pay them a fee to use the facilities and try to extract minute quantities of precious gold. The process involves crushing the rock and mixing it into slurry with mercury. Any gold combines with the mercury. This process involves standing on top of large stones shaped like rolling pins and rocking back and forth for six hours. Sound like fun? If you’re lucky, you make enough to put food on the table without developing mercury poisoning!
After lunch at the hotel, we headed over to the local airport to catch our small plane for a flight over the Nazca Lines. This is why we came to Nazca and I was looking forward to seeing what many books list as one of the Seven Wonders of the World. We were not disappointed! No one really knows how the figures were actually constructed. How could such large images be made on the ground by people who did not have the perspective of viewing them from above? Thus the theory about aliens, Etc. Most current thinking centers on the belief that the figures somehow indicate sources of water in the dry God-forsaken desert. My favorite two figures were the hummingbird and spider. If you are prone to motion sickness, take something before the flight. The plane makes sharp banking turns so that the figures are visible to the passengers. Unfortunately, despite taking bonine, my wife spent most of the flight looking at the inside of a plastic bag rather than the ground.
We spent the afternoon relaxing at the hotel before being shuttled to the bus station for our all-night trip to Arequipa.
We've used Adventure Life for several trips in the past and have always been very pleased with them. The staff is personable and professional at the same time. Erin put this trip together for us in just a few days, and it has everything we were looking for! I recommend them without hesitation.
benn
3 weeks ago
I served as the person responsible for planning a trip to Galapagos and Machu Picchu for a group of 14 people. Jane with Adventure Life was very helpful throughout the process. Making suggestions, offering insight, and in the end helped me overhaul an initial plan into something even better. Also, Jane makes all the plans including the flights within and between Peru and Ecuador. Thanks to her this is going to be a stress-free adventure. After making the final decision about the trip, Jane gathered the contact information for all the travelers and sent out the details to each traveler individually with links to pay deposits, upload passport info, and personal preferences. She also ensured a group email was sent out to the entire group welcoming us to the trip preparation process. Our trip is a year from now and we are excited to make this once in a life time trek. I am happy to have organized things through Adventure Life. However, two small issues came up that were a little off putting. First, Adventure Life adds $50 per person to the cost for each traveler as a donation to a Galapagos conservation fund. I think this should he offered as something that can be added at each traveler’s discretion. Instead, it is automatically added, and each person must ask to have it removed if they do not want it included. Second, although the trip deposit may be paid with a credit card without incurring an additional fee, the balance must be paid in another way to avoid a 3% credit card fee. Maybe this is standard with all travel agencies. In the end I would definitely go through Adventure Life for the next big trip.
Brenda Nielsen
1 month ago
I think it was very helpful that Franny and I spoke on the phone. I think she had a better idea of what we were looking for, and she planned a great itinerary for us!
Elizabeth
2 months ago
My representative Kevin was very responsive generally and in crafting our itinerary to our specific priorities.
Rocco Labella
3 months ago
Easy.
Great work on the follow up and details by Waru.