Nasca & Pan American Highway

Following the fun we had in the Sand Dunes, we took a quick 2 hour bus south to Nasca. As Renee mentioned below, we spent our first day there lounging around our room near the washrooms. We escaped in the evening to the local Planetarium to learn about the ``Nasca Lines``.  There are 500 square km covered with hundreds of animals and lines carved into the rocky desert. Starting over 2000 years ago, the locals began  scatching these lines as a possible way to communicate with gods. These people worked on it for 800 years!!! Talk about commitment (Or maybe they were bored? Not Sure).

 Approx 300 m long monkey

From Nasca we made a 9 hour bus ride south down the Pan American Highway to Arequipa. In Southern Peru it goes like this…Ocean – Andes Mountains. No flat spot for a road, so they carved a road in the side of the mountains hanging 1000`s of feet above the ocean below.

Apparently they went over budget on the road, so there was`t enough money for guard rails.  We were relieved to successfully arrive at our destination.

COLIN