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We left Arequipa before the morning traffic started,
however, as it turned out, due to roadworks, we were detoured into a circle,
and was only able to get out after some delays.
As we move south towards the coast, it was very obvious, that Arequipa is really surrounded by deserts. Little did I know, the rest of our journey along the Pacific coasts from here to Ecuador are all deserts.
And there are quite a few large scale mines, mining most probably, copper. This region is just adjacent to the Atacama Desert, and it shouldn't be surprising given the amount of mining activities we saw back in Atacama.
There appears to be a lot of new settlements dotted along the sandy terrains, nothing more than a small house, with a fenced rectangular block. I can only guess the nature of these settlements being some mining company resettling indigenous people into, what appears, to be quite barren lands.
It was sand, sand and sand, along the winding highway to the coast.
And finally, voila!, the sea appeared right in front, 30 days after we turned into the Andean highlands from Bahia Inglesa in Chile, where we entered the Atacama Desert.
We passed a number of coastal townships, advertising
themselves to be some seaside resorts, but to be honest, they weren't
appealing.
As we hugged along the Pacific Coast, the landscape is rugged and awe inspiring. Some places are just steep sandy slopes to a shear cliff further down, not someplace one would want to sand surf.
And there are fertile patches along river deltas.
We were stranded along a stretch of steep and narrow highway for a couple of hours, because of some accident inside one of the tunnels.
Lack of any sensible information, we were half expecting this could go on into the night, but luckily it was cleared up by mid afternoon.
Just an observation, for whatever it is worth. Out of the stranded vehicles, 90% of them
were big trucks or buses. That seems to tell me that very little personal /
private vehicles are on this stretch of the road. I surmise that, outside of the big cities,
personal vehicle ownership is quite small in Peru.
We finally rolled into our campsite at Puerto Inka just after sunset.
This would be the first
time we rolled the tents out after Atacama. While the place lacked in
character, but it certainly was a lot warmer then the highlands.
Will rolled us out of Puerto Inka the next morning, continuing our journey along the desert coasts. It was desert, desert, and then some more.
Then it really fired up my enthusiasms, when we reached Chauchilla Cemetery. Look what we have here.......dry pre-spanic mummies all over the place in their original graves, some as old as 200 AD.
Unfortunately, their treasures had been plundered by grave-robbers before the Peruvian Government was able to protect them.
We reached our final destination of the day, Nasca and its famous Nasca Line drawings on the deserts. Some of us might recall the 1970 pseudo-documentary ( later discredited ) : "Chariot of the Gods", which interpreted these large scale line drawings on the Nasca desert to be the work of the aliens, and that they used this region as their landing strips etc etc.
So some of us, dished out the last few dollars in the pocket, and boarded a flight to fly us around to have an encounter of the third kind.
According to the brochure, there are twelve of these geoglyphs. what are called the Nasca Lines, stretching over 80 Km in the surrounding deserts.
They are estimated to be between 1600 to 1300 years old, made by the Nasca people for their God to see from the sky. The dry desert climate have helped to preserve them. More information here.
With some degree of high expectations, we were given the chart above to show us what to look for. However, once in the air, it was quite difficult to identify them, in a moving aeroplane, and not knowing the size and orientation of the individual figures, with only just the shape to go on, plus the not so clear English of our guide, I honestly could not identify most of them.
Below are some of the figures I was able to pickup from the images later after enhancing them with software.
However, it was a clear and sunny day, and we had a ball
just to see the landscapes, flying around in an aeroplane.
Again, we noticed, that there were many settlers, or squatters in the surrounding hills. We were told that they were illegals.
And we stayed nearby for a night.
As we move south towards the coast, it was very obvious, that Arequipa is really surrounded by deserts. Little did I know, the rest of our journey along the Pacific coasts from here to Ecuador are all deserts.
And there are quite a few large scale mines, mining most probably, copper. This region is just adjacent to the Atacama Desert, and it shouldn't be surprising given the amount of mining activities we saw back in Atacama.
There appears to be a lot of new settlements dotted along the sandy terrains, nothing more than a small house, with a fenced rectangular block. I can only guess the nature of these settlements being some mining company resettling indigenous people into, what appears, to be quite barren lands.
It was sand, sand and sand, along the winding highway to the coast.
And finally, voila!, the sea appeared right in front, 30 days after we turned into the Andean highlands from Bahia Inglesa in Chile, where we entered the Atacama Desert.
 |
| First sight of sea level after 30 days |
As we hugged along the Pacific Coast, the landscape is rugged and awe inspiring. Some places are just steep sandy slopes to a shear cliff further down, not someplace one would want to sand surf.
 |
| Lunching by a steep cliff with great scenery |
And there are fertile patches along river deltas.
We were stranded along a stretch of steep and narrow highway for a couple of hours, because of some accident inside one of the tunnels.
Lack of any sensible information, we were half expecting this could go on into the night, but luckily it was cleared up by mid afternoon.
 |
| Long line of stranded trucks starting to move. |
We finally rolled into our campsite at Puerto Inka just after sunset.
 |
| Going... |
 |
| Going... |
 |
| Gone....to Australia |
Will rolled us out of Puerto Inka the next morning, continuing our journey along the desert coasts. It was desert, desert, and then some more.
Then it really fired up my enthusiasms, when we reached Chauchilla Cemetery. Look what we have here.......dry pre-spanic mummies all over the place in their original graves, some as old as 200 AD.
Unfortunately, their treasures had been plundered by grave-robbers before the Peruvian Government was able to protect them.
We reached our final destination of the day, Nasca and its famous Nasca Line drawings on the deserts. Some of us might recall the 1970 pseudo-documentary ( later discredited ) : "Chariot of the Gods", which interpreted these large scale line drawings on the Nasca desert to be the work of the aliens, and that they used this region as their landing strips etc etc.
So some of us, dished out the last few dollars in the pocket, and boarded a flight to fly us around to have an encounter of the third kind.
According to the brochure, there are twelve of these geoglyphs. what are called the Nasca Lines, stretching over 80 Km in the surrounding deserts.
They are estimated to be between 1600 to 1300 years old, made by the Nasca people for their God to see from the sky. The dry desert climate have helped to preserve them. More information here.
With some degree of high expectations, we were given the chart above to show us what to look for. However, once in the air, it was quite difficult to identify them, in a moving aeroplane, and not knowing the size and orientation of the individual figures, with only just the shape to go on, plus the not so clear English of our guide, I honestly could not identify most of them.
Below are some of the figures I was able to pickup from the images later after enhancing them with software.
 |
| Humming Bird |
 |
| Whale |
 |
| Spider |
 |
| Alcatraz - and something on the top right. |
 |
| Tree and the Hands |
 |
| Parrot |
Again, we noticed, that there were many settlers, or squatters in the surrounding hills. We were told that they were illegals.
And we stayed nearby for a night.
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