Searching for Aliens in Ica

We had to get up before first light, and in this town that’s hard to figure out. We met Pablo in the lobby and he took us back to the airport where we would catch our flight up to Ica on Aerocondor. This is about as “no thrills” airline as you can find that actually still fly’s, plus they give you a discount if you bring your own duct tape for the propellers. This is where we would meet Bob. Bob is an older fella from Texas who is frustrated by people that do not speak English. Bob was part of a larger tour group but was still able to get lost in the airport and held up the bus that would take us to the plane. Once we landed they told us to remain seated until the plane and propellers stopped, both in Spanish and English, however Bob was up just after we touched down and was the only one standing for like five minutes. No wonder others see Americans as goof balls. I don't care much for Bob.

Once in the open air airport of Ica I stumbled across this picture right out of the pages of National Geographic. It really is amazing how she is able to slice open that fish with only a stone isn’t it?


We then transfered to a smaller plane to fly over the Nazca lines, our pilot was ready as soon as he finished his beer.


Actually, we took a different plane which had two engines and two propellers for extra safty, if you look close you can see one in front and one in back.


But I was not worried with Captain Ben riding shotgun.


The Nazca lines are a series of hundreds of geoglyphs that can only be seen from the sky. No one is really sure who created these and why. Not only are these lines visible but other items are such as birds, spiders, monkeys, dogs, and strangest of all, astronauts are visible. Current theories suggest the Nazca people created these for everything from charting constellations, ways to locate water, messages to the Gods, and my favorite, landing strips for aliens.

We headed out in to the desert.


The views were nothing short of amazing.


And at times surreal.


We then came across some lines, and there are lines everywhere.


They often involve some larger trapezoids or triangles, which I would later find interesting as much of the Inca architecture also involved trapezoids.


Some seemed to go no place and not make any sense, others hinted that something lie in a given direction.




Not far away you could make out ancient ruins,


And then we came upon the Astronaut. I felt very confused with this one, there has to be some meaning here to someone from above. Not to sound too crazy but I was also scanning the skies for any possible UFOs, which of course I came up empty handed. However while looking around I saw probably four to five other planes in close range. If fact if you get sick easily this flight is not for you, they fly these planes close to the ground in steep banking turns that probably exceed the manufactures recommendation. There was a light on the front panel that kept going off which at first I did not understand, however I later came to the conclusion that this was the stall warning and that they had probably ripped out the wires to the actual audible siren so not to scare the passengers.


These next ones are kind of hard to see when I shrink the image to be web friendly, but if you look close you can see a humming bird in the center top part of this image.


And along came a spider.


They call this a “Tree” (on the left) and “Hands” (on the right), still impressive if you take in consideration the size of it compared to the trucks going by on the road.


What did they know that we do not, or is it something that we are not ready to understand yet, or are they just pictures for the Gods, and if so, who are their Gods, or is the question who is our God? After our flight we had a few hours before our return flight to Lima so we visited the Ica Regional Museum which had some amazing mummy remains but unfortunately they did not allow any pictures or video to be taken inside. So after a short visit we headed to the Huacahina Lagoon. Along the way we passed a cemetery.


This is a kind of apartment system for bodies where rather than paying top dollar for the penthouse on top of the building, you pay top dollar to be buried under ground. The higher above ground your plot is the cheaper it is but the more you rot from the heat from the sun.


We traveled by van in to the desert.


And came upon the oasis, a small body of water in the middle of nowhere called the Huacachina Lagoon.


This place was amazing and while at first I thought for the first time in my life I was seeing a mirage this place was actually real.




If you look close that is actually a guy at the top of the sand dune, and yes in his arms he is carrying a “sandboard” getting ready to board down the dune just as anyone would snowboard down a mountain in the winter.


This is one of only a few regrets I have about this trip in that there was not enough time for me to make the hour or two hike up the dune to try and board down. But then those of you that have skied with me know that any day I board I feel that I just missed another great day of skiing. Well this would have been the exception to the rule. Now all they need is a chair lift.


Its amazing how a little water can give birth to a small town in the middle of nowhere.


We returned to the airport and were pleased to find that someone was keeping tabs on Bob so that we could leave on time. We got back to Lima and headed down to the Entertainment Center, basically an outdoor shopping mall complete with fancy restaurants, arcades, bowling alleys, and movie theaters.


That night we tried of first of many Peruvian dishes, Ceviche, a kind of citrus marinated seafood salad – soup thing. The fish part of it was great, however there were a number of other ocean creatures in it that I could have done without. We paid with a Visa card (one of the last times this was an option) to avoid the whole change issue and headed back to the hotel. Tomorrow we would have to get up about two hours before first light in order to begin our journey to Puno and Lake Titicaca, better set two alarms to be safe.


VIDEO: Nazca Lines and Huacahina Lagoon