Day 40 – Saturday, March 7, 2026

I can now reveal the reason for wanting to reach 8 last evening was that I planned to see the famous lines from above, i e. from a plane. The best time for this is the morning. Somewhat atypical for me, I started organizing this sight-seeing tour two days prior, but could not tell whether I would arrive, where I would,stay if I did. I tried to explain this to the tour operator I found online via WhatsApp - the communication was anything but smooth. A take away: pose only one question - as only the last one shall be answered. Anyhow, the previous evening I told them I did indeed arrive and where I was staying, a bit of an uncommitted 8:30 was agreed upon. I way mentally prepared for all permutations that the pick-up would either be late, or they would never show up - all the more surprised I was to see someone looking for me (with an almost correct pronunciation of my name) and soon we were heading to the tiny airport. Here all passengers get weighed, need to pay airport and government taxes for the visit on top of the $80 and after a short wait, passport abd security controls took place. We were a group of five in a Cessna 207 in addition to two friendly pilots. I had a blast. By now you will know that (safe for a few places) I had s strong bond to the Atacama Desert and it was an amazing sight from above. Needless to say, the lines and the various figures was breathtaking - I enjoyed the trip so much, I started negotiating for a repeat run - but then decided against it. Someone down there owns a mansion with multiple pools - and also cool was to see the road I would be riding on. Sure, it is a touristy thing, but I love flying - so would have never missed this. I am smiling looking through the pics.

So I had a smile when looking vacation at the sightseeing flight, this becomes a frown when remembering the other part of the day. At noon, I left town, having big plans of making 80 or more kilometers in the afternoon All things a biker dislikes were offered as s package deal: heavy traffic; bad or no shouder (the truck on the first pic had some issues keeping his lane), a strog headwind, quite a few ascents, got really hot and the scenerywas not tp. There was a lookout and some of the figures and a guard was selling a sort of s frozen friut drink - i gulped down four (!) of these.gave a few sips to a young boy). My progress was slow and I felt compelled to stop at the various Nazca lookout. I met a French family who have been traveling South America for months I finally reached a small town called Pulpa and was ready for yet another bad experience. My opinion changed when I reached the center - the church and the arcades could have been in Italy or Spain. I had a tasty dinner, some sort of a goulash. Aldo, I found quite am OK hotel. Soon gonna retire - there are still 400 km to Lima. Well, it was just 50 km I rode this afternoon...