The Nasca Lines

2/25/14, 2:21 PM

Over the course of the last few days, we have realized that all Peruvian men wearing green shirts are jerks. Seriously, it's a thing here. The first green-shirted jerk met us at the bus station in Nasca two days ago.  He fed us some lines about the driver coming in 2 minutes to pick us up for our tour, asked where I was from twice (I guess he'd forgotten he had just asked), asked us to wait inside the bus station, and hopped into some guy's car to leave. Yes, leave.

Worried we were going to be stranded in the miserable town of Nasca, I ran to the car to find out why he was ditching us. He gave me some more lines, and the car sped away. I wasn't really sure what to do at that point.  I thought we'd been scammed.

Unexpectedly, the driver actually did show up about five minutes later. We never saw the green-shirt guy again (thankfully).

We had been warned that the flight over the Nasca Lines that we had booked was both scary and nauseating.  Miraculously, I was totally fine. I wasn't so much worried about getting sick as I was worried about being terrified out of my mind. I don't do heights or planes well. I am still totally impressed with myself. During the short half-hour flight, we saw seven or eight geoglyphs (pictures drawn into the earth).  We saw a parrot, spider, monkey, tree, and even some geometric designs.

The plane that flew us over the Nasca Lines.

Flying over the Nasca area

After the flight, we were taken back to the bus station, and we took the first bus out of Nasca. We weren't at all impressed with the town. It was noisy and dirty, and we had read that the town had nothing to offer. We took Peru Bus to Ica where we ate lunch at yet another vegetarian restaurant.

After lunch, we took a taxi to the desert oasis of Huacachina. Huacachina is a small community that consists of a natural lake surrounded by palm trees and sand dunes. There are a few touristy restaurants and shops, but the main business in Huacachina is dune buggy and sand boarding combo tours.

Huacachina, the desert oasis

We had ours scheduled for the next day, so we could relax at the oasis for the rest of that first day.

We met the second green-shirted jerk two days ago at the hostel restaurant. The guy works as a waiter and acted annoyed when we weren't ready to order right away. He even sat down at our table with us to show us he was tired of waiting. We weren't the only ones to get this treatment. We witnessed this guy sitting down at other tables to mostly surprised looks.

After dinner, we washed clothes in the hostel sink and prepared for our dune buggy adventure the next day.