Meeting Bob

After four flights and a night in Santiago, Chile, we finally made it to Arequipa in Peru for the start of our South American adventure. We joined a group of 11 other travellers ranging from 18 to a crazy 35 year old. On our first day we wandered around the main square in the city trying to find an ATM that would let us get cash out whilst getting to know our project leader, Danny. Meeting the group was slightly overwhelming because everyone introduced themselves at once, meaning that we could only remember a couple of names between us!


Bob Esponge!

The next day we met Bob (aka spongebob- bob esponge!), the huge, yellow truck we would be travelling on for the next 3 weeks. It had to be called a truck and if we accidentally called it a b-u-s we had to wear the hat of shame! We each had a locker under the seats to put all our bags and there was even a 'beach' to lie on. On driving days we would be on the road for about 6-7 hours and our lunch stops would just be at the side of the road wherever we could stop. Bob was able to store an entire kitchen and so lunches were usually pretty good. Our first lunch stop was at the beach which was very exciting for the group as they hadn't seen the coast in a while having been at altitude for weeks. That night was our first camping experience at a beach camp where Katie was part of the cooking group, meaning she made dinner and breakfast the morning after. There was no slow integration into the group, we were thrown straight in!

Hat of Shame

First beach camp

On our third day we visited Chauchilla cemetery which is about 30 miles from the town of Nazca and is the sight of graves of mummified human remains. Our guide, Yohan, was very enthusiastic about the mummies and went into a lot of detail about how the bodies were made to last so long. All the mummies were in the foetal position and one of the mummies, known as Bob Marley, had 3m long hair!

One of the tombs



Bob Marley

Yohan the guide

Mummified headless child

Nazca is most famously known for the Nazca lines. They are large dug out pictures in the ground that were drawn by the people years ago as an offering to the gods to provide water. They depict different animals and plants and are best seen from the air. However our tour leader could not recommend we take a scenic flight as they have high accident rates, so we decided (seeing as scenic flights never end well for us) we would just view the Nazca lines from a viewpoint. The viewpoint itself was a nerve racking tower that swayed once you were at the top and so we quickly ran to the top, took some photos and came back down.
(the pictures were taken by friends who went on a scenic flight over the lines)


If you look really closely you can see the hummingbird

Here's the viewtower, and we promise there are a couple of Nazca lines in this picture!