Southern Peru

The entire Pacific coast of Peru is a dry and barren desert. You can drive for days without seeing much greenery. However, every now and then there is an oasis.

The Reserva Lomas de Lachay is a peculiar little ecosystem that gets its water from coastal fog. It was fairly dry during our visit, but from July to October it transforms into a lush green little forest in the middle of the desert.

Another oasis we visited was Huacachina. This is more of your classic "Lawrence of Arabia" oasis. Huge sand dunes, palm trees, a small lake. It is also popular amongst local and foreign tourists alike for sandboarding. Noisy dune buggies shuttle people up the dunes with their boards. We didn't have a go as it looked pretty lame, but everyone seemed to be having fun.

A highlight of southern Peru is the famous Nazca lines. They cover 500 square kilometeres, and there are over 300 geometric figures, some 70 animal and plant figures, and over 800 perfectly straight lines. They were created by dark rocks being removed to reveal lighter gypsum soil underneath. They are so big that the only way to really appreciate them is by aeroplane. They were discovered in 1939 during a research flight on ancient irrigation. Some of them are so big and the proportions so accurate that researchers suspect that complicated mathematics were involved. Who created them and why remains a mystery. Here are a few aerial photos from google:

We stopped by a tower built by the side of the road where you can view "the hands" and "the tree" from an oblique viewpoint. They are pretty impressive.

We also visited the well preserved colonial town of Arequipa before heading to the border. We had a classic last Peruvian dinner of cuy (guinea pig), and ricotta relleno (large pepper stuffed with ground alpaca and baked).