No visit to Peru would be complete without over-flying the Nazca lines – I won’t describe the Lines or provide a photo of them as there is so much on the Web/in guide books about them. Instead those intending to take a flight might be interested in the attached photo from our visit as long ago as 1984.

On arrival at the town of Nazca you have a number of different flying companies to choose from. In theory prices are “fixed” but, depending on the season etc, it is quite possible to shop around on the evening before and get both a “reduced fare” and a reasonably firm flight departure time. We chose Aeroica. At the airport (a rather grand term for what was an airstrip then - it may be better now!) planes are doing continuous take off and landings for the 40 minute flights. The engine on our plane wouldn’t start with the turn of the propeller from the (ageing!) ground-staff so the pilot got out and did it himself. He was, however, unaware that the chocks had been removed and, with the engine successfully started, the plane started to trundle pilot-less down the runway full of passengers! Various bystanders hung onto the tail and tried to stop it but succeeded only in turning it so that it crashed into the “terminal building”! There were no injuries so this result was no doubt better than some possible alternative outcomes!

Now Aeroica still flies “the Lines”! Its Web site has rather pleasant Peruvian music and a nice map of the Lines together with a prebooking feature. Even this particular De Havilland Beaver plane must have been repaired as there is a “planespotter’s” site on the Web with a photo of it (same number!) dated 23 March 1986.

We did fly that morning – although my wife refused to go in a different plane from myself on the basis that it was better if both of us died together! Whether the “unsafe” practice adopted by the pilot (I wonder happened to him!) was typical of other safety concerns and whether all such issues have been fully rectified I know not.

But it is a GREAT trip – a lot of tight turns so, if you get airsick, you will on this flight! Arrange a (licensed!) taxi out to the airstrip and allow time to see the other sights on the way such as the Cemetery. I have some rather disturbing photos of desiccated bodies sitting in the rainless desert where tomb robbers had left them – hopefully the Peruvian authorities have got control over this now.