Walking around Arequipa

November 16^th-18^th 

I took my first Peruvian night bus from Nazca to Arequipa, the second largest city in Peru with a little over a million inhabitants.  One theory behind the origin of its name is from the word Ari meaning “summit” and Queppa which is “behind” so it’s the city located behind summits.  This makes sense as there are 3 volcanoes around the city: Misti which last erupted in 1985, dormant Chacani and extinct Pichu Pichu.  Arequipa is known as the “White City” since a lot of its historic buildings are built with white volcanic rock known as Sillar.

On the overnight bus:

My first view of the main square:

Some random suit of armor outside a building:

The courtyard of the Flying Dog hostel:

I never did play, but it was a nice looking billiard room at the hostel:

My cavernous bedroom:

Being at an altitude of 2335 meters above sea level, I decided to take it relatively easy the first day to acclimatize as Nazca only sits at 520 meters.  I met up with the Dutch couple, Reinier and Sibel, for drinks and dinner in the main square, also known as Plaza de Armas.  Pretty much all Peruvian cities have a square with this name, a hangover from the Spaniards I would guess. 

The Plaza de Armas:

Chacani Volcano:

A beautiful sunset:

Misti Volcano:

Reinier was brave and tried the Peruvian delicacy cuy for the first time.  If you’re not familiar with cuy, well it is guinea pig.  Yup, guinea pig…those cuddly little pets that many kids love as pets in many Western countries.  We all agreed that the dish would have been more appealing if it didn’t still have its little legs and head sporting its small front teeth.  Reinier did offer me a bite which I decided I had to try.  It was alright, a bit greasy but I think part of that was that it wasn’t the best restaurant.  When in Rome!

Reinier and his cuy:

Yum?!?

The following day I booked a walking tour which started at 10 am.  First, I charged up with an awesome breakfast at a place called Eco Brunch, which was recommended to me by Reinier and Sibel, and it did not disappoint…super yummy.

 

The meeting point was on a pedestrian-only street a few blocks from the Plaza de Armas.  We started off with only 6 tourists, but we were soon joined by 8-10 more people once we reached a small park called the Plaza de San Francisco.  We walked along some narrow streets with the guide explaining some of the history of the city.

Starting the tour:

Next, we ventured into Mundo Alpaca - Alpaca World!  We walked by the shops at the front of the complex filled with a variety of clothing from sweaters to scarves made from alpaca or llama fur, lots of nice looking stuff.  Back outside there was a pen with both alpacas and llamas hanging out.  We learned that and an easy way to tell the two animals apart is by looking at the neck.  Llamas have longer necks than alpacas.

An alpaca:

A llama:

The sorting of the fur must be done manually:

We spent a good chunk of the tour in Alpaca World, a bit too much to my liking.  Sure, we learned a lot about these animals but wasn’t this supposed to be a walking city tour?  Getting back on track, we wandered our way towards the centre of the city.  One interesting tidbit that the guide mentioned was that important historical buildings sport a blue and white little shield mounted on the wall and there’s a QR code near the door.  You can quickly scan the door and find out interesting information about the structure.  Great idea.

 

Outdoor, Covid friendly, confessions:

The tour finished on the same rooftop that I had visited the previous evening with Reinier and Sibel.  The group joined in a toast with some little drink and then we parted ways.  Overall, I think the tour could have been better but it was alright.

Another beautiful sunset in Arequipa:

The Cahuachi Pyramids & Cantalloc Aqueducts

 November 15^th, 2021

After the flight over the Nazca Lines, the tour guide asked whether I was interested in an afternoon tour to some pyramids, a cemetery and the aqueducts for 35 (I assumed Soles, but it later turned out to be US dollars, about four times the price).  Why not?  I haven’t got much else to do and the young American couple who had taken a video of me paragliding in Huacachina said that they had liked it.  Three other tourists, a Colombian woman named Malena with her adult son Jose and a young woman Vanessa from Mexico City joined me as we hopped in a car with our tour guide Reynaldo.

We drove about five kilometers from the airport on the main road before turning off for another 10-12 kilometers on a gravel road before arriving at the Cahuachi Pyramids.  One other car of tourists was just leaving but after that we were the only ones there.  Being the only English speaker in our group, most of the tour was in Spanish.  That’s okay because I have to admit that I don’t really dig archaeological digs.  Supposedly this was a major ceremonial spot for the Nazca people between 1-500 AD.  It is thought that there are many more smaller pyramids in the area but no one seems to be bothered in uncovering them (this was thought to be the main and biggest one).

 Approaching the pyramids:

At least the mask gives good sun protection:

The people lived out there, a little away from the pyramids:

On our drive back towards Nazca, we pulled over at a supposed cemetery.  I say “supposed” as really it was just some old bones lying around but it was quite interesting in a macabre kinda way.  Along with sun bleached skulls, femurs, vertebrae, and other bones were mats of hair and even strips of clothing…all supposedly from 1500-2000 years ago.  I was surprised that they hadn’t all been stolen as they were just lying around in a field.

A Catholic cemetary nearby.  Reminded me of Spaghetti Westerns:

We finished our tour with a stop at the Cantalloc Aqueducts which we flew over during the Nazca Lines flight.  They were built about 1500 years ago and still function today.  It is a series of holes lined with stones with a stream running along the bottom that comes from springs in the mountains.  The further upstream you go, the deeper the hole.  The guide told us that occasionally the tunnels had to be cleaned so they were accessed by these holes.  Someone had to crawl through the tunnels to perform the maintenance.  It all seemed like a lot of effort but obviously it worked, and still works today.

Vanessa venturing down on aqueduct:

Me in one of the deepest ones:

Someone's house next door:

The tour was alright in general, a good way to kill an afternoon in Nazca.  As I mentioned earlier, I was a bit surprised at the cost, $35 USD each so with 4 of us the guide made pretty good dough for 2 hours of work, especially considering we’re in Peru but oh well, that happens sometimes when travelling.

Flying over the Nazca Lines

November 15^th, 2021

Yesterday I left Huacachina on another Peru Hop bus, or one chartered by them.  My online itinerary stated that the bus would leave at 1pm but it wasn’t until close to 4 that two smaller buses showed up.  I was a bit miffed as I could have chilled out at Banana’s (the hostel I was staying at it) but hiccups like this occur when backpacking.

It was a 2½ hour journey to Nazca and about 25 minutes before the town we stopped at a 4-5 storey viewing tower to get a look at a few of the Nazca lines.  A lot of travellers on tight budgets don’t spring for the half hour plane flight over the lines so this would be their only look.  It wasn’t terribly impressive.  Sure, we could see a bit of the lizard, the hands and the tree in the flat desert strewn with small rocks but it was hard to make out much.

Looking out over the desert:

Looking down the highway:

The viewing tower:

The view from the tower:

The old viewing tower:

The Nazca Lines are a bunch of geoglyphs created between 500 BC and 500 AD by depressions  or shallow incisions in the desert floor.  There are more than 70 figures and many more geometrical patterns and the combined length of all of the lines is over 1300 kilometers!  Why were they made?  No one really knows for sure.  One hypothesis is that the Nazca people created them to be seen by the deities in the sky.  Since there is hardly any rain in the area (like 2-3 millimeters a year), they don’t easily get eroded.  It fascinating to try and figure out how they made them without being able to see them from above.

 

The next morning, I was picked up from my hotel and taken to the small airport near the edge of the city.  Our passports were checked as were our body weights, one by one we stood on a scale.  If you were over 95 kilograms, you were purchasing a second seat!  We walked out onto the tarmac were 4-5 Cessnas were sitting.  Each of them looked similar in size and carried six passengers and two pilots.  We took a few photos from the outside and were handed a small, laminated card that showed us the flight plan and which designs we would see and in which order.

Inside the tiny airport terminal:

Our ride:

After boarding, strapping in and donning our headsets, we took off.   The co-pilot provided the play-by-play commentary as we passed by the various figures and geometric patterns.  In order for passengers on both sides of the plane to get a good view, we often banked hard in a circle to pass over the same spot in a different direction.  I couldn’t help but think that these pilots had a pretty cool gig.  Most commercial pilots end up being glorified bus drivers and have to fly nice and gentle with smooth turns…not these guys!

Me and Jose ready to go:

Awesome alluviums:

The Astronaut.  To me, this looks like someone made it later.

The Condor:

Two of the patterns that I looked forward to seeing were the Monkey and the Spider.  The astronaut was up there on the list but man, he was pretty tiny.  In fact, all of them were smaller than I had expected.  The largest was maybe 360 meters in length but most of them were around 100-160 meters and being relatively high up in a plane made them look smaller.  I guess all the pictures that I have seen in the past of the Nazca Lines had nothing to give you a frame of reference of the actual size. 

The Monkey!

The Hummingbird:

What a gorgeous view:

The Spider:

The viewing tower from yesterday:

Another one that looks like some teenagers made it recently:

Enjoying the ride:

Heading back towards the airport:

The aqueducts from above (more on these in the next post):

Some of Nazca:

Nonetheless, it was a super fun flight and I am happy that I did it!