Nazca

After repeatedly waking through the night to squawks and screams from the brat in the seat across the aisle we arrived in Nasca with relief at about 10 in the morning to be greeted by a hot, dusty rather uninspiring scene. As we got off the bus we were greeted by a man who turned out to be the guy that we had been recommended to by the hostel owner in Puno! He gave us a lift to a hostel that his friends ran and we got a dorm room for S15 which we were happy to pay as other places seemed rather pricey in comparison. Going on the recommendation we agreed to book our tours with this guy, Luis, although we normally do these things ourselves it also said in the guide book that in this instance cheaper is usually not better. After arranging our flight over the nasca lines for the next day, a boat trip to the Isla's Ballestas (the so called poor man's Galapagos in Paracas) and buses to Paracas and then on to Lima we headed back to the hostel. I went for a shower which started off ok but after being electrocuted the water went cold and I finished up as quick as I could, not particularly happy! It seemed that my shock had also blown the electrics to our floor and as there was no-one in the hostel who worked there we couldn't get it sorted so decided to go out and have a look around the town instead. Nasca is one of those places where if it had a report card would say 'could do better'!! As a major tourist trap due to the lines you would think that they would at least attempt to make it an appealing place to be, but apart from a big square in the centre where people hang out at night, its a bit of a dump! The roads are mostly unpaved, it smells, lots of buildings are neglected and seem to be left to ruin and those that are in use aren't much better, all in all not a place

you would want to spend any time in! As we were walking along, feeling rather hot not being used to the change from the weather we'd been having recently, we decided an ice cream would be a good idea so when we saw a lady selling shaved ices we ordered one each. For S2 each (about £0.40) we got a good size tub full of sheaved ice covered in 3 different flavour sauces and a cup full of what tasted like un-set jelly poured over it with a spoon and a straw to eat it with. These Rasperillas as they are called were delicious and we slurped our way through them with some relish until it started to spit with rain and we headed back to the hostel where after 6 hours of being off, the electric was back on and we were able to charge stuff!! We wrote a couple of blogs but were unable to post them as no one knew the password to connect to the internet and once again, there was no staff in the building to ask. List of complaints so far included electrocution, cold showers, no electricity and no internet..what else was going to go wrong?!! Feeling the heat and being tired from the awful bus journey we had a couple of hours sleep in our bunks before getting up and thinking about going for dinner. It was now about 6.30 and as we walked round town looking for any of the cheap places mentioned in the guide book, we found that everywhere was closed!! A bit miffed as we were now used to places being open early and closing early we went to the other small square (well triangle) to sit down while we waited for places to open once more. After 15 minutes or so I'd had enough and said I'd rather walk around than sit there...it seems that the people here have never seen a female, blonde tourist before and every single car or person that went past us leered at me, making no attempt to hide it even though I was sat with Andy who wasnt too impressed with it either! Annoyed at being made to feel like a bloody exhibit we left and thankfully found a chinese that was open where we sat down near the back of the restaurant, away from the windows. We ordered and were delighted with the huge pile of tasty noodles, rice etc that we got for very little money and once we'd finished headed back to the hostel to get an early night ready for the next day.