Mystical Lines and Capital Cities

We left Arequipa on a nightbus to the north and woke up early the next morning in dusty Nazca. The tiny town in the middle of the desert is home to the mysterious Nazca Lines – lines that were scratched in the sandy ground by the Nazca civilization long before the Inca empire spread there. From the ground, the lines don't make much sense – but get up above them and you'll find they form a network of giant geometric figures and drawings of animals, plants

and human beings. Why did the Nazcans create these giant earth-graffitis? The beauty of them can only be seen from above but they didn't know how to fly. How did they create the perfect geometric pictures without losing the overview of what they were doing? What tools did they use to scratch the ground on such a massive scale? Everything is not certain when it comes to the Nazca lines. Scientists have long wondered about these questions and some of their possible answers certainly seem more plausible than others (though it is still fun to fly above the lines and think of them as alien-airports). For whatever they were used in the time they were created – today they are a World Heritage Site that draws in the tourists by their hundreds every day. We took an unforgettable flight over the sight in a little Cessna plane that made our stomachs quite uneasy from time to time (or better: from turn to turn). In a little more than half an hour we overflew an astounding array of figures, saw monkeys, dogs, whales and the astonishing astronaut, got our head twisted by giant hands, spiders and octopus and tried to catch all the trapezoids, arrows and lines that zigzagged below us. It was a great sight – and one that will have us wonder for quite a while.

After the flight we got on a bus to Ica where we changed to another bus to the capital, Lima. We got there at night after a tiring drive through the steaming hot desert in a non-aircon bus and went straight to bed. The next day, we explored Central Lima where you'll find plazas, colonial architecture, the government buildings and lots of street life. It is said not to be the safest place to wander around – but as we stuck to the daylight hours we never felt uncomfortable and actually enjoyed ourselves quite a bit as Lima happened to be a beautiful city. We saw churches and visited monasteries, enjoyed ice cream in the sun on the beautiful Plaza de Armas that is surrounded by grand, colorful architecture, we strolled along the chaotic pedestrian streets and enjoyed sunset at an ultramodern park over the river, we watched a great game of soccer with an unbearable last 5 minutes in a German beer house (where we still appeared to be the only supporters of the German team) and we spent a great night out with good music at the Hard Rock Cafe.

On our last day in Peru we visited ultramodern, tidy Miraflores – a quarter of Lima that is blessed with dramatic coastline, beautiful parks and safe streets to wander. We spent hours walking atop the cliffs, watching the surfers beneath us riding the surf of the great pacific, joining the joggers in their efforts at the small gym-stations in the park, enjoying the sight of the many paragliders that disappeared over the cliffs just to rise up behind them after a second and sit on benches to lazily enjoy some sun on our faces. At last hunger lead us to a big mall with a fantastic setting – it is built straight into the cliff. The view was amazing, the food not so much.

After a very short night, we had to get up at 1am to get to the airport in time to catch our flight to Bogota in Colombia. This meant goodbye to Stephan, whom we traveled with for almost a month. On our own again, we crossed the equator on the way to Bogota via Panama – we are back on 'our' side of the world now... We landed in Bogota in the early afternoon and it took quite some time to get to the city center. The ride took us along wide, green boulevards and tidy parks into the narrow, noisy heart of the city where we found a great hostel – and just went to bed for the rest of the day.

The next morning dawned and we got up quite refreshed and ready to explore the town. We spent hours in the historic center of La Candelaria with its charming colonial architecture, cafes and restaurants and noisy street vendors. Even though the main Plaza de Bolivar was quite a disappointment after the many beautiful squares we have seen during the last couple of weeks, the surrounding architecture was not: the national government has their impressive palaces here and the main cathedral majestically overlooks the whole place. When it started raining in the
afternoon (a very common happening in the city that by the way also is quite chilly – we thought Colombia would be steaming hot after the Andean countries) we went to visit the absolutely astonishing Museo del Oro. In over 3 hours we saw thousands of exquisite works of gold from all the major pre-Hispanic cultures in Colombia and learned (in a curiously interesting manner) all about the tools and techniques that were used, the cultural background that accompanied the masterful pieces, Colombian history and much more. The museum is definitely one of the not-to-be-missed sights in Bogota. While we spent time in the museum it had stopped raining and the 'Septimazo' had started: the main street that leads towards the Plaza de Bolivar is closed down for cars on Friday evenings and a sort of nightmarket sets up along it. Next to the vendors, tons of eccentric street performers fill the street that all gather groups of spectators around them – dancers, mimics, storytellers, gamblers,...we rarely found a more surreal crowd of people, and we rarely enjoyed ourselves so much! We walked up and down the whole length of the street twice before it got too much for us – and we left for a quite dinner and the movies in yet another glitzy mall along the way.