Nazca and the bus ride from Cusco

CUSCO TO NAZCA, PERU
July 20 2015

Clang, squeal. The bus breaks down before sunrise.
Hours of delay….morning, where are we? On the carretera, up from Nazca, with barren brown mountains, sand, and cold air.
I looked at this bus before getting on and had this thought of it breaking down. But the price was too good and there’s really no sure way to predict about the cheap buses, just take your chances.
Further…the bus mechanic in the next town of Piquio takes more hours of delay. Piquio is small with some local food options and at least one hospedaje along the main street. I was excited about what looked like a large array of Inka ruins along the hills, unmarked and surrounded by farms and industry. But I couldn’t find any information on these ruins, and the more walls I saw the more modern they looked. Does anyone know about the walls of Piquio?

After Piquio the bus goes uphill instead of down the road where the sign points to Nazca, through beautiful rocky canyons then mountain grasslands and into a vicuña preserve on a dirt road…finally stopping behind a line of trucks. What’s going on? Roadblock? Landslide? Driver lost?
A man in a mask is walking on top of the pink rock face. I get out of the bus and climb up and talk with him. He’s going to Nazca too, he says, and the road ahead is being paved. Ok.
A woman sells pan dulce and I buy some and eat it next to a ‘toxico’ sign on the ground.

Another man invites me to lie on his just-made straw bed with him. One of the other riders comes out and plays his guitar.
Over on the hill, wild vicuñas run by. A condor flies above. Out here in the Pampa Galera national reserve,  there is no time. Nazca is one or three hours away, we are told, but no one knows for sure and no one seems to care.

NAZCA

Nasca or Nazca is a modern town in the Nazca river valley at the foot of the western slope of the Andes. It was once the center of the “Nazca culture” pre-Inka (200 BCE-1000 CE), thriving along the desert coast south of Lima like the Moche and Chimu to the north. The city and culture are most famous for the massive lines drawn in the sand, which were most likely intended as a calendar. Upriver, there are aqueduct ruins, which I did not visit.
To see all or most of the lines, one needs to take a private plane out of the Nazca airport. This is expensive for the tourist on a budget. A much cheaper option is to take one of the inter-city buses (Cueva or Flores) from Nazca city up the Panamerica to a mirador where you may see 3 of the lines. The bus fare is S/3 each way and to climb the short mirador is S/2. The 3 lines visible from here are the Hands, Tree, and Lizard (cut in the middle by the Panamerica).

I stayed in the Hotel Mirador in the Plaza — an elegant, historic building with a S/20 simple habitation special. Breakfast and internet are included, and there is a balcony with a sunset view. For a basic traveler, what more could you ask for? It is comfortable and probably the best deal in town. Ask for Elvis.