12/12/18 In the afternoon, we stopped at Huacachina oasis close to Ica town, well preserved in the middle of the desert on the way to Nazca. The oasis is no longer naturally producing water so the locals had to create a pipe to feed the oasis. It has palm trees, sand dunes and a few restaurants and souvenir shops. There is a hotel next to it with a swimming pool that we could enjoy for a good hour before driving to Nazca. Tourists like the place for sand bugging and sand boarding but with my wound it was not safe to do it so I declined the optional activity.

Later we visited the regional museum of Ica, where they have mummies, old potteries and other funeral accessories.

We also stopped at a tower along the road to Nazca to watch more inca geoglyphs. I learned that a German lady, Maria Reiche decided to study them for years and protect them so we can still enjoy them today. They are marks in the ground, about 15cm deep and they cover huge pieces of land. If they were damaged by men or natural causes like heavy rain or earthquake she would work hard to fix and protect them. The Peruvian people are very grateful to her and you can find statues of her, paintings or her name everywhere in the city of Nazca.

Nazca has around 60000 people, and they are living with water shortage regularly. It rains up to 2mm per year only.

Peru has the biggest sand dune in the world: cerro blanco. From far away it looks like snow but it is light brown sand.




13/12/18 A driver picked us up at the hotel at 8 and we went to Chauchilla necropolis, a giant cemetery in the middle of the desert. Here were buried hundreds and hundreds of mummies of 1000 years old. They still have hair, teeth and skin and are surrounded by precious items like corn, gems and potteries. Robbers dug up many objects and damaged many corpses throughout the years but we can know visit 12 open tombs. People were buried in foetus position wrapped up in cotton and funeral robes. The site is simple and peaceful, except for a couple visiting after us there was no one else.

The second was a visit of the Cantayoq aquaduct, an archeological site still allowing water to run from the mountains to the local.

We stopped by another area with geoglyphs and went back to the hotel to take a shower before lunch. We went to a Chifa, Chinese Peruvian restaurant for lunch and we wandered a little in the city before the girls took a bus to have a flight experience and observe more geoplyphs from above.

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