NAZCA HUACACHINA PARACAS - Panamerican Trip (ENG)

NAZCA HUACACHINA PARACAS - Panamerican Trip
La version Francaise est ici.

Leaving Arequipa on a Sunday night, we decided to head north to Lima with a few stops on the way along the pacific coast of Peru. Along the Panamericana, a huge road which goes all the way along the American continent, from Alaska to south of Chili, with only one break between Panama and Colombia in the jungle forest of the Darien Gap. We did that with 3 French friends, Segolene, Maxime and Matthieu (another one).
We arrived in Nazca at 6 am monday morning, headed to the small airport of the city where a dozaine of companies are bargaining their flights over the famous Nazca lines, those drawings in the desert made by... Nobody does really know by who, but there are lots of theories about them... Some say they were made by the civilasion Nazca who were really advanced in geometry and mathematics, and thus could draw huge things wihtout being able to see them from the sky (they are some 15 to 20 meters wide!!!)
We thus took the small plane, a cesna just big enough forthe 6 of us, and we enjoyed about 30 min of flights over this enigma. It was really interesting, really surprising, and the flight early morning was also an experience we won't forget tomorrow... And we didn't even got sick from the acrobatic flight! Here are a few photos of the lines. It's truly weird to see something like that, and we had to admit they are enigmatic. What about this astronaut? Made by some martians in order to remember where their landing spot on earth was? That's just another of the serious theories about the lines...

A nice group of Zozos in front of the plane... Right: The Condor

After the lines, we didn't stay in Nazca which was supposed to be a crap town when the lines have been seen. We jumped into a huge chevrolet and continued our journey north, to Huacachina, a small oasis in the desert some 5 hours south of Lima. We spent a night there, in a very nice hostel with parrots and lorikeets, a swimming pool, and of course the dunes of the desert. Those dunes are more or less the attraction of Huacachina (with the very nice weather, enjoyable after 2 months spent on the cold altiplano of the Andes...). We went walking on the dunes with boards, did a bit of sandboarding (real fun!), went for a few hours with a huge buggy far in the desert playing Mel Gibson in Mad Max and ended with some funny photos jumping everywhere in the sand. Have a look:

Huacachina, an oasis  in the desert

The ara from the hostel

Sunset in the desert.

JB's sand-surfing! He likes it...

Those french guys are crazy... Matt (green), Matthieu (yellow) and JB (red)

After all those adventures in the desert of Huacachina, we took another bus to Pisco, further north and went to the natural reserve of Pacaras. This reserve is called the Galapagos of the poors. And indeed it was for me a bit like the Galapagos (I'm poor and won't visit the Galapagos...) with a visit of the Islands of Ballestas which are famous for the guanos (bird shits) left by the millions of seagulls, cormorans, piguins and other birds. It's really impressive, and with the sea-lions and dolphins, we really had a nice morning going around with a small boat in the morning. In the afternoon, we finished the visit of the reserve in the peninsula of Pacaras. There we enjoyed some nice beachs, weird natural rocks (The Cathedral reminded of the devil's kitchen in Tasmania) and forced walk in the desert while our bus was being repaired after a flat tyre...

Lea and Matt in the boat to the Island Right: Birds from the Islands Ballestas

Art on the breach. Left : "The Cathedral"in the antional reserve of Paracas

Before going to the next adventures, I wanted to thank Lea, the German girl we met in Pisco and who gave us her photos after Jb's camera left us pictureless, it didn't really like the sand of Huacachina... Thanks Lea and Auf Wiedersehn!
Ciao ciao to all of you, see you next episode, in Lima!