Nazca Lines

Up at 7:30 after about 4.5 hours of sleep, had breakfast in the hostal (free) and we left for the airport at 8:15. We stopped at the bus station on the way out of town and booked a 1:15pm bus to Arequipa for this afternoon.Nazca is quite nice in the day, our hostal street is just under construction right now. The rest of the town is quite well maintained.We got to the airport and climbed into a small 6-seater Cessna, the pilot and 5 tourists. We had the option of going up in a 20 seater, but not everyone gets their own windows on that plane.The flight lasted about 35 minutes, the pilot would do incredibly steep banks so everyone could get good views of the lines. It was kind of sick inducing, making my stomach a bit unsettled. Lisa took some meds to help, as she's prone to sickness in small planes.The lines were kinda cool, but the flight itself was the best, seeing the barren landscape, where nary a cactus even grows, the red rock hills scattered among the sand.Back to the hostal about 10:00am, I showered and Lisa slept. I walked around town, had a rreal breakfast at a restaurant and back to the room about 11:30. Lisa and me checked out, went to a restaurant so Lisa could eat, then walked to the bus station for our 1:15 bus to Arequipa.Bus ride spectacular, all desert, so dry, at times huge sand dunes were covering road signs and parts of the road, sometimes turning a 2 lane highway into a single lane. Vast stretches of beach too, South America must surely have some of the longest stretches of beach on the planet.Arrived in Arequipa quite late, 10:30pm. Asked a taxi driver to take us to the Plaza del Armas in the centre of town, where hostals congregate. He said that it would be a bit dangerous to be wandering around at night, and took us to Hostal Baviera, even when we asked him to take us to a couple of others. This hostal is about 1.5 blocks from the plaza. Lisa checked it out while I waited outside with our bags and the taxi driver, she bargained a bit (her first time) and saved us 5 soles each on the price of the room. She came back downsstairs to the taxi, gave me a thumbs up, and we headed to the room and went to bed with ear plugs in. 25 soles each for the room.