We were up early, and, with a box breakfast, we headed south along the coast. There wasn’t a lot of traffic at that hour and we had some good views of the ocean near Lima.
So, based on this drive, I will forever think of Peru as brown, or tan or other similar colors. It turns out that Lima is the second largest desert city in the world after Cairo Egypt. It never rains. And the area all around the city and down the coast is in the Sechura Desert. And it borders the Atacama Desert, the world’s driest non-polar desert.
Not only is it dry and desert but is really, really dry…in that we can see no vegetation as we travel through the area…other than plants that have been planted and are being irrigated.
When we finally made it to Pisco we stopped
and enjoyed the beach birds and fishing activities.
We saw people in wet suits fishing for octopus by hand.
There were also a lot of brightly colored fishing boats.
We even saw a small, handful of flamingos.
We headed a bit farther down the coast to wander along the waterfront area of Paracas...
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Birds in flight video
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until it was time to go to the airport for our flight to the Nazca Lines. The airport is very new and as soon as it opened it had to shut down because of the pandemic. It was a ghost town. The seven people going on the flight, their guides and the airline and airport security personnel were the only ones there.
Then the seven of us boarded the plane for our trip to the Nazca Lines.
It was 40 minute or so flight out to where the lines can best be seen. The flight itself was interesting as much of the countryside was desert with lush green irrigated farm patches thrown in every so often.
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More Flight to the Nazca Lines
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The lines are a group of large geoglyphs made in the soil of the Nazca Desert. They were created between 500BC and AD500 by the Nazca people. There are lots of theories as to why they were made but nothing conclusive. Contrary to popular belief, one doesn't need to be in the air to see them, as many are visible from the hills.
They were formed by removing rocks and pebbles and making depressions by scrapping off a level of soil, revealing a different color of soil (making a “negative” image”). The figures have lasted so long because there is only about 1 inch of rain a year in the area and there is very little wind.
There are many very long straight lines all over the main area,
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| The Whale |
plus may drawings of forms, animals, plants, and birds. To date there have been over 800 straight lines, 300 geometric figures and 80 animal and plant designs found. And scientists continue to find more.
The flight took us over one area that had a high concentration of figures. It was fascinating to see them. Unfortunately, the bumping and tipping and dipping of the airplane gave Paul air sickness and while he wasn’t terribly sick it did affect his ability to enjoy the views. Some of the figures we saw were:
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| The Astronaut |
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| The Condor |
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| The Dog |
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| The Flower |
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| The Heron |
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| The Hummingbird |
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| The Monkey |
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| The Parrot |
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| The Pelican |
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| The Spider |
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| Spiral |
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| The Lizard, The Tree and The Hands |
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| Just more lines |
Then it was the long trip back to Lima. We were pretty tired when we got back to the hotel so opted to get something light at the little take-away place in the hotel. And then we crashed.
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