the poor man's galapagos. i can't remember the real name off the islands we went to off the coast of pisco, but that's close enough, right? actually, there are a whole lot of places we went to wednesday that i can't remember the names of, but i might as well post now and come back and edit some other time. shoot now, ask questions later. sounds like a plan.
so the day started out in a boat, heading out to the small islands. the islands are situated near warm water currents and because of this, there are a whole lot of animals. on the way we passed a huge candelabra carved into a cliff on the peninsula... they aren't sure who did it, whether it was natives or aliens or whatnot, but in any case, it gave us a good idea what the nazca lines would be like (see below). after passing the peninsula, we got into more open waters and the rolling waves made about a third of the boat sick, but we didn't let the people puking around us ruin our enjoyment. we were accompanied toward the islands by hundreds of birds flying in lines, kinda like a ribbon floating in the wind and it was neat to see them all move up and down with the wind. we got the the islands, and immediately we saw a whole lot of birds, sea lions, and penguins. one of the islands was used by the sea lions as a nursery, and there were scores of them sunbathing on the rocks and swimming around. another one of the islands had literally hundreds of thousands of birds. apparently they collectively leave a meter of poo on the island every year, and every five years people come to, uhm, harvest the five meters of shit for fertilizer. i guess this trip to south america is helping me narrow down future professions, cause that job is certainly something i can cross of the list. professional bird poo collector. gah. the second part of the day was a bus tour. we headed out into the desert that surrounds pisco to see some of the dramatic coastline views and wander around near the coast. and we saw sand. lots and lots of sand. we also got to see some flamingos (off in the distance, beyond the sand).
and because we hadn't had enough sand for the day, that evening we headed down to a small town surrounded by sand dunes. we arrived at night, so the fact that this town was a small oasis in the midst of huge sand dunes escaped me until the next morning. after a, uhm, delightful dinner, we wandered around town before amy and ari went in search of some pisco sours and i went back to get some stuff done. we all had a late night, and after what seems like ages, we all got to sleep in the next day.
thursday afternoon we arrived in nazca, and after giving our money away to anyone who wanted it (the hostel, the bus company, the airplane tour company, the restaurant, and the internet cafe), we tried to have any early night since all had to be up early this morning for our flight. and finally, that brings me to today. we booked an 8 am departure to go and see the nazca lines. i have no idea what the general public knowledge about the lines are, but for simplicity sake, here is erica's highly informative yet probably inaccurate ramble about the lines. the nazca lines are huge animal and geometrical shapes that were carved into the desert plane about a 1000 years ago. they are so big that the designs can only be seen from the air (kinda like crop circles) and so consequently were only discovered about fifty years ago. their origins are a bit of a mystery; some people think they were done by aliens, but most believe they were done by the native people way back when, but there are a number of theories as to why and how they made the shapes. okay. history lesson over. so we three scrunched into a small four person plane, and headed up to see the nazca lines. they were really amazing, especially when you think about how large they are and how long they have been preserved. our 35 minute flight was over almost before it began, and we headed back into town for some lunch and relaxation time.
and that brings me to now. amy and ari went off to see some bones (they really like their skeletons, those two), and i opted to stay in town to wander about and search for a fourth pair of sunglasses. i found them, but i really am not having the best of luck with sunglasses. the first pair (from cambodia) i lost at the ruins of tikal in guatemala. the second broke on a bus in ecuador. the third forgotten in a bathroom in peru. and now i am onto the fourth pair. i guess they are destined to implode in bolivia. we'll see.
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