Nazca & Puerto Inca, Peru

Aug 3-5

Nazca, famous for the Nazca Lines, is just a few hours South of Huacachina. The Nazca Lines are a bit of a mystery. It is a collection of drawings, mostly of animals, out in the middle of the desert and no one knows how they got there!

Late in the morning we arrived at a viewpoint, where we could see the frog hands and the tree. To be able to see all the lines you need to go on a short plane flight, which I deemed not only too expensive but figured I would probably get motion sick and not end up enjoying it.

In the afternoon, a few of us explored the town...which is not interesting in the slightest! 

We cooked chilli con carne for dinner and had an early night, in order to take full advantage of sleeping in real beds! 

En route to Puerto Inca the next day we made a stop at Chauchilla cemetery. This place is roughly 2000 years old and used to be filled with hundreds of mummies, but tomb raiders have destroyed heaps of it.. So we only saw 12 tombs, some with multiple mummies inside. 

All the bodies were mummified in the fetal position because the Incas believed that we should exit the world the same way we entered it. When a mummy was buried they were laid to rest with items of great value (hence the tomb raiders) and sometimes animals and other people were even sacrificed to be buried with important people. Babies were also regularly selected by the priests to be sacrificed. They were first decapitated and their heads were used as a part of a ritualistic dance, then buried in a sacred pyramid. The rest of the baby's body would be mummified and buried.  

Early afternoon we arrived at Puerto Inca, a small campsite on the beach that used to be used as a port. Lovely spot to camp!

A bunch of us went exploring, checking out some ruins and climbing rocks to get a nice view of the beach.

In the evening we played some beach volleyball and had a couple of drinks around the campfire. Unfortunately Bini, my tent buddy, had a few too many drinks and vomited in the tent. Not ideal...eek.

The only way to drink punch...