Nazca

Sun 5:20pm. Went to the anthropological museum, 1km out of the centre. No distance but it's damned hot here - it's slightly better as I write this s but still warm. I believe I made few observations on the weather from La Paz to here, which suggests it was generally unexceptional by my personal standards. It was warmish around Lake Titicaca during the day (though I remember it being freezing in the shadow of one of the Inca towers I visited at that site near Puno), coolish at night, but yeah, I guess nothing surprising.

Museum moderately interesting but not astoundingly so. I stayed ages as I made a bit of a point of trying to read all 40-odd information displays on the wall in Spanish (with a lot of skimming and inferring from context), despite being provided with a booklet containing summaries in English.

Perhaps sadly the high spot was a replica in the garden of the lines/designs on the pampa, complete with the Panamericana running through it. They had a few peacocks out there too.

Desperately thirst afterwards. In a serious way (obviously not that seriously, otherwise I wouldn't have waited as I did), not just as a way of saying I fancied a beer. I did a bit of a circuit and am currently down some small and exceedingly local-looking bar which I passed the first time, rejected, and returned to after finding no proper bar (only restauranty places - I don't like drinking in them, and I want to eat later when it cools down).

I nerved myself to come in in front of about five people sat here (as now) watching the football. No obvious bar but this kid stared at me. I asked him if I could buy a beer. He said yes. I asked him something else. No reponse. I asked if I couldn't buy a beer. No response. At this point he gestured at a guy who I assume was his Dad lying down across several seats. The guy spoke to me and I think told the kid to serve me, but he didn't, so the guy got up and served me. Felt rather awkward. This is one of those bars which are maybe 30 square metre concrete floored 'rooms' opening off the street with a sort of bar, the kind of place which has almost always intimidated me away before.

Practically finished my beer before I started writing this, would quite like another but have no idea if it's possible. Going to hang on until the football finishes and see what happens. I hope to feel less intrusive then. The owner/barman is still stretched across some chairs though, which doesn't help. I feel immensely touristy sat here, like I shouldn't be allowed in.

I guess on the one hand this (Nazca, not this bar) is a real tourist place due to the lines, but I bet most people don't hang around much after that. If you knew what you were doing and wanted to, you could come in on a bus arriving 8am from say Arequipa, fly over the lines that day and be on a bus out the same evening to somewhere else.