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Russ: We were up at 8 this morning which was quite a lie in compared to other starts we have had recently and we left Nazca at 9 to travel to a very small beach town called Puerto Inca (this place was originally the Inca port town and was one of the many starting points of the Inca trail leading to the Great Machu Picchu).
On the way to this place we had a short stop at this cemetry, which had open graves with mummies in them from around 1300 years ago. It was really interesting to see these but was quite creepy as some still had hair yuk! They all faced east towards sun rise in the graves, some of their hair had turned a light brown from black from the sun. (Matt quote) The site has over 600 tombs but only 500 odd have been opened. They are due to open one quite soon and it will be quite an event. Each tomb contains several mummies and sometimes babies! They also contain ceramics which go for a lot on the black market, this is why the area is quite well protected with security guards. The tombs were made by the Nasca people, and some have damaged skulls which is the result of a war they had with the Wari tribe from the mountain whose weapon of choice was the mace hehe! (end)
On the way we drove through lots of desert as pretty much that entire area of Peru is just one massive desert, and had some great picture opportunities of the Andes and desert landscapes. Puerto Inca is on the coast which is now just a tourist hotel and campsite, but was such a nice place we could have easily spent a few days there to chill out.
We arrived there about midday and we were camping so had to set up the tents again - We love camping, was such a great place to camp though, because it was really hot and our tents looked out at the sea, we were only a few metres away from it :). After setting up all the camping equipment we got ready for the sea, which was not the best place for swimming, the waves were huge and the tide really sucked you out, had a couple of hairy moments and decided to get the hell out of it or I would of ended up in Oz about 2 months early haha. But it was refreshing as it was fairly hot in this place, it was about as cold as Jersey sea but when you're really hot it felt really refreshing!!, only about 8 people braved the water including the 3 of us woo hoo.
In the early afternoon Matt and Mel decided to explore the south end of the place as there is still loads of old Inca ruins on the hillside and surrounding area, while I went on a damn couple of hour hike to see sunset - anything to impress a woman :) Although it was a pretty good path through mountains as there is loads of ruins there, some with bones still in them - I think we walked in to the protected site by accident haha. (Matt quote) The ruins we went to look around were really cool, the whole place was a port but was also a fishing village which means they have small houses right on the cliff edge as well as lots of large store room areas. We also found the actual staring point where Puerto Inca joins in the Inca Trail as we could tell from the path being marked out with stones each side, the path disappeared right off into the mountains. The runners had to take fresh fish from here to the king running like a relay race doing 15K each in sandals!! poor b*****s. The ruins here didnt seem to be quite as well maintained but were still fantastic to see, while we were up on the coast line we were also lucky enough to spot a whale in the distance which Kim and Andre had seen spitting up water! When we got back we also made friends with the Parrot there, he was so funny, kept shouting Olla as well as making cat noises... think he was a bit confused what he was hehe!! (end)
Later in the afternoon Matt and some of the guys from our tour challenged the local staff of the hotel to footy on the local pitch (dodgy dusty mud pitch) but again they whooped the locals, they haven't lost a game yet, probably because theres no way im playing even if it was back at sea level.
The evening meal was good as steve the driver prepared a bbq on the beach with a stash of wood we keep on Doris, damn good eating too and it saved us cooking the meals for a change, we had steak, potatoes, sausages was great!
Mike our guide made sangria in a massive container which was really nice and didn't even taste alcolholic. We moved into the local bar and played this jenga game where if you knock out a block with a certain number you have to do the dare that relates to that number and if you knock all of them down you had to sing a song at Karaoke (I got told off for losing on purpose haha), Mel lost one game and was dared to sing Born In the USA. Its always good when its just our tour at bars as we can choose the music instead of the local spanish tripe, so the evening involved drink, singing and what you could call dancing in some places of the world - God knows what time we finsihed but im pretty sure it wasnt us but the locals who wanted to go to bed haha, wimps :).
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