the famous nazca lines
Hello everyone!
Here is a flight from Lima to Iquitos but first I am going to post a bonus flight over the Nazca lines that we did just before arriving to Lima.
The departure was actually from Nazca, SPZA airport but since it is not in the database, the closest Airport I found was Huanuco.
Same the airline doesn't exist in the database and was http://www.nazcaflights.com/
During our 4 months trip in Latin America, we went to a lot of places in Argentina, Chile, Peru, Bolivia, Ecuator and Colombia.
Way out:
London - Paris CDG: Air France A320 report here
Paris CDG - Buenos Aires EZE: Air France Boeing 777-200 report here
Argentina
Iguazu - Buenos Aires AEP: Latam A320 report here
Buenos Aires AEP - Salta: Latam A320 report here
Salta - Cordoba: Aerolineas Argentinas B737-800 report here
Cordoba - Mendoza: Aerolineas Argentinas (Austral) E190 report here
Chile
Santiago - Antofagasta: Sky Airlines A320 report here
Peru
Lima - Iquitos: Viva Air A320 report here
Iquitos - Lima: Viva Air A320 report here
Nazca flights: Touristic bonus Report Here
Colombia
Medellin - San Andres: Latam A320 report here
San Andres - Cartagena: Latam A320 report here
Santa Marta - Bogota: Latam A320 report here
Way back
Bogota - Paris CDG: Air France B787-9 report here
Paris CDG - Londres Heathrow: Air France A318 report here
the nazca lines
We vastly know of the Inca Empire as it was largely described to us by the spanish conquistadoresbut what we often don't know is that were a variety of different cultures before the Inca emerged; the earliest evidence we have is somewhere in the North of Peru, near Arequipa. The people over there built Pyramids that are as old as the Egyptian pyramids.
All of these cultures are sometimes trading, sometimes they aren't but they have some common cultures.
In between these two periods, around 2000 years ago, the Nazca culture emerged.
These people were mastering water management for agriculture, gold jewelleries and were very good at textiles production (with colours that are still visible today).
These people are famously known for the lines in the desert, obviously.
The reason why it is more interesting to fly above the lines is that you don't see much otherwise on land. But at least you can see here that the lines aren't any wider than a human foot.
The approx. 1 hour flight isn't that cheap for the locals but it was reasonable for me with its $80.
When you arrive at the airport, they ask for your passport (even though you are not crossing any border!) and they put you on weight scale to determine your seat in the plane (could you imagine this on commercial aviation)!
Here is our Cessna 207.
Aircraft: Cessna T207 Turbo Stationair 8
Registration: OB-2179
Engines: Continental IO-520-F
Age: ??
Layout: Y5
There is a short safety briefing in both spanish and english and take off follows very shortly after.
onboard the cesna 207
Passing by the larger variant, the Cesna 208
take off!
Can you see these amazing lines?
So sometimes the lines are not straight but hey have defined angles and in the middle some animals. Can you see the wale on the bottom right corner?
There are two kinds of lines to look at:
The first type that is more or less a drawing of an animal
The second that is the perfectly straight lines put in the sand for kilometers.
The region is naturally arid and these green fields weren't much around at the nazca times.
I forgot to mention that this place is one of the driest in the world as it almost never rains.
The other particularity and the fascinating thing is that THERE WAS NEVER AND NEVER IS WIND!
And that is the explanation why some marks in the sand left about 2000 years ago are still impeccably protected, otherwise they would have been long gone.
Can you see the triangle going over the hill on the bottom right corner?
The very famous monkey
They think the geometric shapes were done after the animals.
And the very famous "astraunot"
Which is very weird as he has boots, he ssems to be wearing a helmet and rises his hand to greet people.
The tree and the two hands. In comparison you can see a truck.
A quick glimpse at the cockpit
some more lines
The spider
The Nazca people did dig in the ground to try and collect water from the humidty in the morning.
And preparation for landing
a seat? no an ironing board
I have been very lucky to go and travel in South America with my other half for 4 months from Argentina to Colombia.
We were flying from the Peruvian Capital to the remote town of Iquitos, where the Amazon river is born.
I was initially planning to fly Latam, or Peru but Viva Air was half the price so we chose this low cost airline, born in Colombia.
Viva Air doesn't have an app so we booked our tickets on the website itself. Of course the basic tarif just includes a little hand bag, the next tarif up a cabin luggage and 15kg on the hull and the last one additional 20kg and priority lane. I went for the last tariff as our luggage was quite heavy.
Like any other hard low cost airline, if you want to be seated together, you have to pay to choose your seats online.
at lima airport
We arrived at the surprisingly small airport (for a capital city I mean) very early and queued at checkin. We printed our boarding pass tickets the day before otherwise the airline charges you for it. The staff was quite cold and dare I say mean: my luggage was 1.12kg over and i got charged extra for it despite my best protestations, arguing the higher tariff should be more generous, especially since the custom is usually 23 kg not 20.
I was also told the priority lane wasn't for boarding but for luggage drop off!!
We then went through security quite quickly - with bottles full of water (not causing any issues it seems in Latin America).
The plane was parked at a gate with a jetway, It worth noticing it as it was the only service that made a good difference.
The plane was parked at a gate with a jetway, It worth noticing it as it was the only service that made a good difference.
Our Viva bird was an A320-200 with sharklets.
Aircraft: Airbus A320-214
Registration: HK-5277
Engines: 2x CFM56
Age: 9 months
Layout: Y188
Observation: Registered in Colombia but used for Viva Air Peru.
Boarding happened in a single queue/group old fashion way.
Our seat was clean and that's about it. The seat pitch was the smallest I've ever seen. The seats themselves are some sort of faux leather covered ironing boards, with a tiny food tray (size of an enveloppe).
on board the a320
We took off with a 14 min delay, after safety briefing performed by the crew and an announce from the captain.
the crew quickly started their on board service but we didn't chose any food. After being requested from a couple of passengers, the crew finally deemed the lights down again to let us sleep a bit more.
Per flight radar we reached 35,000 feet quite quickly and the rest of the flight was smooth except a few turbulences approaching.
The airline didn't offer any entertainment.
The descent went a bit bumpy, but offered stunning views on the amazon.
Viva air magasine was very average with a lot of advertisement. On the corporate section there was an interesting memo from the c.e.o. in both english and spanish, explaining the benefits of flying low-cost, that you are told you can only pay what you need (even if experienced otherwise).
The landing was smooth.
arriving at iquitos airport
The airport was modern, wirth plants, large, bright and AC'ed rooms.
