After not having enough success in Ica, our research director requested that we move to a different coastal city called Piura. Its on the northern coast of Peru, so we have a cumulative 20 hour bus ride ahead of us (4 hours to Lima then 16 from Lima to Piura). Our director wants us to go there because there is an IPA office in Piura, which she believes will be helpful in having us find moneylenders. I am doubtful about this for two reason, 1. we had an IPA office in Cusco, and even though they tried to help us find moneylenders there, it didn't result in any type of moneylender jackpot and 2. we have spoken with the IPA people in Piura, and they do not seem to know anything about informal lending (although they have been very supportive and will try to be helpful when we are there!). In general, I just think informal moneylenders are going to be hard to find whereever we are, whether we are somewhere with an IPA office or not. Therefore, though I am hopeful about the prospects in Piura, I'm a little bummed out that instead of going south and getting to see Lake Titicaca (probably the only real complaint I have about this change of plans), we instead are heading north.
On a different note, we decided to take the 2 hours bus today to see the Nasca lines! The Nasca lines are are a series of ancient geoglyphs located in the Nazca Desert of Peru. They are a big mystery because nobody knows how they got there (though Mike and I speculated that its probably a tourist agency hoax ha). The only way you can see them is by going up in a plane. The planes are TINY, and even today, when the weather was perfect, I got a little motion sickness. To make me feel better, they gave me a cotton ball with alcohol on it to smell. I thought that was pretty weird! Up in flight we saw 11 differnt figures, there was a big spider, a condor, a hummingbird, a monkey, and my favorite, the astronaut. Some were harder to see than others, and I only managed to get pictures of a few!
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