Nazca

We drove for quite a while before coming close to

Nazca and stopping at a small lookout tower to see some of the Nazca Lines up close. The Nazca Lines, for anyone who hasn't heard of them, are these 'carvings' in the groundstone in the desert region of Peru. Many of which are hundreds of meters long and extremely intricate, creating various animals and shape. Some of the pictures are of hummingbirds, an 'astronaut', monkey, and various shapes. What makes them incredible is that scientists really don't know how they were made so perfectly when they are onnly visible from the air and the Nazca's made them hundreds and hundreds of years ago.

We arrived in Nazca on Halloween and had a hilarous time watching all the little kids run up and down the street in costumes. The streets were extremely crowded and it felt more like a festival for everyone rather than just the kids. After finding our hostel, we left our bags to join in the festivities and walk around the town to find food from street vendors. First find was a handful of hard boiled quail eggs for 1 Sole (40 cents)! Instead of kids chanting 'trick or treat' they would simply chant 'Halloween! Halloween! Halloween!'. Real creative kids.

The next morning we organized a tour with Paracas for a flight tour of the Nazca Lines since that's one of the only ways to be able to see them. We did quite a bit of research since we'd heard several years ago there was very lax safety standards with the airplanes which caused a couple planes per year to crash. As we found out later, Paracas was a great and affordable company to work with. After negotiating the prices and times, we were shuttled to the airport where we found out that all 6 of us couldn't actually go in the same plane! The one they had couldn't be weighted properly or something and they offered separate planes for kids and parents. My parents ended up opting out admitting they were ok with not seeing the lines, and Milessa, Sami, Tyler and I all jumped in a 4-seater. The take-off was bumpy and it felt like a giant hand was grabbing the

plane and shaking it around the whole time, or like it was a small boat in rough waters. Luckily the flight was only 30 minutes as we were all feeling a little motion sickness after a short time! However it was worth it (I thought; Sami, Tyler and Milessa might tell a different story as the sickness hit them a little more) as we were able to see these incredible carvings 100s of years old! The drawings were incredibly precise with circles being perfectly round and straight lines (some 100s and 100s of meters long) being straight as an arrow. Hummingbirds, monkeys, owls, spirals, condors and other animals were etched all over the ground with our pilots masterfully swooping around for us to get the best view of each 2500 feet above. Still nobody really knows how they created them so precisely and inevitably this has led to aid in the countless theories of extra-terrestrials helping the Nazca's (and Incas with their architecture!) design the artwork. My inner Mulder and love of X-files can't help but make me 'Want to Believe!

After the flight we all emerged from the place a little woozy; Sami about as white as the clouds we flew around and Tyler clutching his nearly-used barf-bag tightly. Nothing some Coca-cola and cocoa leaf candies couldn't fix! Afterwards we left Nazca to head further south towards Arequipa. The roads ran along cliffs alongside the coast, and eventually through some extremely tight and scary cliff sides that make BC's wildest look like the prairies. At one point as I drove with Tyler in the passenger seat, we all looked out the right side of the vehicle down the cliff with the car only feet from the edge. Tyler says calmly, at first, 'wow that's pretty scary," before realizing what was really beside us (or not beside us, as the case may be) and notes his fear in escalating fashion: "ok that's actually really scary. Like REALLY scary. Wow I'm scared! THAT IS REALLY SCARY I'M REALLY AFRAID RIGHT NOW!" All in complete seriousness as Sami and I were cracking up. Another classic quote from my 13 year old brother. And he had many is this short 2 weeks together!

Saw this while we were driving on our way to Nazca