Acarí and Nazca; the last leg of field work

On Monday of this past week, we boarded a bus to Acarí at 5:30 (not leaving till 6), a small town which took us 10 hours to get to. So I spent the first part of Monday driving down to the bus station to pay for our tickets before the reservation ran out of time, and then I went with one of the girls of our group to the house of a member family here in Arequipa, where we helped (a little) make lunch and then ate. It was really quite good, we made mashed potatoes and a chicken...dish... It was a sauce made out of tomatoes, a little bit of onion, peas, and a few other things into which we put the chicken and then let it boil for 30 minutes. I'd love to say I figured out how we really did it, but I missed out on some details. It was, however, very good. We had an interesting conversation with the family, who actually lived in Salt Lake for about a decade.

After lunch we went back to the hotel, packed up our things, and went to the bus station again to head off. It got dark as we rode, and after watching a really strange karate movie about a Chinese guy that gets exiled to somewhere in Europe, I tried to fall asleep, which proved fairly difficult in that bus. A long while later, we arrived in Acarí at 4 am, found the hotel where we had a reservation, and crashed into bed. I got up at 10:45, and we met at the FONDESURCO office at 11, and went straight to work. I ended up only doing one survey that day, but the girls on their rounds found quite a few more. I worked on our report of the market study, (which is due this coming week), for about 11 hours that day. Don't anybody do the math for my activities that day! I and the 2 girls also went to a Catholic mass with our FONDESURCO fellow employees in the evening, the organization was recognized in the prayer that was given. I guess that particular church recognizes certain families or companies every so often, because we were one of 3 companies/organizations that were prayed for. The mass was interesting, and the priest also had a powerpoint lesson about one of the 10 commandments. Afterwards, FONDESURCO provided hot chocolate.

I found some orange corn this time.Hey.
Cotton fields...I was surprised.
Wednesday morning the girls finished the rest of the surveys while Cam and I worked on the report some more, and then we took off from Acarí at 10 am in a car to head to Nazca, about 1.5 hours north. It's an interesting, very touristy town. Probably about 30,000 people, we spent a few days here working on reports and also doing a few touristy things ourselves. We saw a movie about the Nazca lines, and then went to a metal tower from which you can see a few of the lines. The Nazca lines are mysterious lines and figures in the desert just northwest of the city, which were made by moving the dark rocks of this rocky desert to the side, exposing the white ground underneath. It is believed that they were made somewhere between 300 BC and 600 AD, and they are still existent, despite their simple and fragile nature, due to the extremely dry climate here, claimed to be one of the driest climates in the world. I recommend reading the Wikipedia article about the lines if you'd like to learn more. The lines are still considered a mystery today, because no one knows really who made them or why, nor how, since the lines can only really be seen from above, by airplane. So they are something of an enigma. We also visited some ruins outside the city, and some extremely old wells that access an underground water spring. On Saturday, Carly and Cam boarded a bus to Lima, because Carly is meeting up with her Dad, who is coming down to accompany his daughter for the last week when we visit Cuzco and Machu Picchu. Cam is actually heading home on July 31, so he's going to work in Lima till he flies out. Chelsea and I are still in Nazca, but we take an overnight bus tonight to head back to Arequipa, where we will finish up the work for FONDESURCO, coordinating with Cam and Carly over the internet.

Carly and Chelsea, waiting to order some food.Ruins near Nazca. Possibly Incan.
A really, really old well.
Yesterday, Chelsea and I went sandboarding. We took off at 7 am, riding a taxi for 30 minutes to the tallest sand dune in the world, and then followed our guide on a 2.5 hour hike up some mountains and then up the dune. It was pretty hot! It's kind of random, the dune, because there's only the one. But it is monstrous! So we hiked to the top, and then sandboarded down. It is the same idea as snowboarding, but is rather different to try to do in the sand. (So said Chelsea, she is a snowboarder while I have never tried it.) We had to scrape wax on the bottom of the boards every so often, and truthfully, it was really rather tiring to head down the mountain on a board, and it was a hard workout on the legs! It was an interesting experience. After we went as far down as you can go, we hiked off the dune and back out to the nearest part of the road for about an hour, where our taxi picked us back up. I don't know if I'd go again, but it was something to try!It was an eventful week. We only have a few more days of work for FONDESURCO, and then we'll be done. I still have some cultural assignments for school to do, and then it's tourism in Cuzco and Machu Picchu until the end! I'm a little in disbelief that there are only 2 weeks left. It has been a wonderful experience, and also a lot of hard work.