Peru - Nazca

After a long bus ride through the desert on the Peruvian coast, we came to the town of Nazca. Nazca is famous for the Nazca lines - lines drawn into the desert floor by the ancient cultures of the area. Since most of the figures and lines can only really be appreciated from the air (the $40 plane rides are offered by just about every shop in town), and so could not be seen by their creators, there is a lot of speculation about the purpose of the lines -- with explanations running the gamut from a sophisticated astronomical calendar (the most likely) to landing strips for aliens (the most unlikely). Whatever the purpose, seeing these giant thousand year old creations from the air was something else. Of course, Jeeheon was too chicken to go up in the tiny plane, but no problem, you can still hire a guide to take you to a couple of local viewing spots. They have a nice little museum that´s included in the tour as well, but, of course, we wouldn´t really know how nice since they were on strike the day we tried to go.

The plane:

More lines (the monkey):

Jeeheon hiking up the hills with our peruvian guide to get a view of the lines: