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We read up on how to get to Peru from Arica and by far the easiest way to do this was to take a taxi from the bus station and the driver would take us across the boarder into the Peruvian boarder town of Tacna.
We packed our bags and turned up at the bus station, we walked towards the international sign and a taxi driver asked us if we were going to Tacna. We said yes and he ushered us into an office with an old lady sat behind a desk with a typewrite on. She took our passports and typed away for 5 minutes. We filled out our departure slip from Chile and completed another slip to enter Peru, bought a "departure" ticket for 50p and the taxi driver took us to his taxi. There were already 3 locals in the back and so we were unsure as to how we would fit but the taxi driver told us both to get in the front seat. Talk about making your monies worth, he had an automatic and there were 3 seats in the front! So, we took the 2 hour drive to the boarder, the drivers choice of music, the whole album of Roxette....in spanish...Gem was loving it!
When we got to the boarder the taxi driver came with us and helped translating and before we knew it we were safely at the bus station in Peru, and all for less than 5 quid. We didn´t want to stay in Tacna, we wanted to get a bus straight away to Nazca but all the buses were full that day so we booked our ticket for the day after and found a hotel to bed down in for the night.
Boarder towns are always full of wholesale shops and people coming form one country to the next with their goods to sell. With it being Christmas the bus station was abnormally full when we arrived the next day. As we waited on our semi luxury bus (only 4 pounds each) we watched the local buses being packed to the brim with packages, parcels and bags of all sizes. It was an overnight bus to Nazca and was quite comfortable, the lady who was giving out refreshments etc even put subtitles on the television for us making us feel like Peru was going to be a nice place to stay.
We arrived in Nazca early in the morning and a lady from the hostel we had booked was at the bus station waiting for us. We followed her the few blocks to the hostel and checked in feeling very tired and needing a good nights sleep. We didn´t do much other than grab some local food on the first day. They have set menus in Peru where you get a soup and a main course. We don´t know what we are ordering but on this occasion it turned out fine and the soup was amazing, not bad for 3 pound all in!
We decided to take a few days to simply not do much in Nazca, having travelled so much over the past couple of weeks. We had decided we would spend Christmas and New Year in a place called Huacachina, an oasis in the desert so we planned on how to get there and where we would stay. We spent time with other guests who had taken flights over the Nazca lines and by the end of our time in Nazca we felt we knew enough about them and how bad the flights are that we were glad we didn´t fly over them! They are a series of ancient geolyphs apparently created between 400 and 650AD. There are is a humming bird, monkey, lizard and even a shark - strange as it is in the middle of a desert!
After a nice relaxing time here we have booked our bus tickets to Huacachina and are looking forward to spending Christmas there.
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