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There's relatively little of great interest in the 170km of desert between Nazca and Chala. Sacaco , a fossil site with a small museum, can be reached on by Cueva bus to Las Lomas - ask the driver where to disembark - after which it's a thirty-minute walk. LAS LOMAS itself is an attractive fishing village with a beach that's especially good for spotting pelicans, about 90km to the south and off the Panamerican Highway. If you're based in Nazca you can take a tour here, often taking in Sacaco, or catch the Cueva bus here (a 1hr journey). The hotel Capricho de Verano (contact through the Hotel Don Agucho; $20-30) has a lovely location looking right down onto the beach, and you can also camp in the area. Avoid Puerto San Juan , the one place of any real size on this stretch of coast, but actually just a modern industrial port for local iron-ore and copper mines. Continue on until you find the first break in the area's starkness as you approach Chala, at the olive groves in the Yauca Valley. Just beyond this, at Km 595 of the Panamerican Highway, is a strange uplifted zone, a natural oasis with its own microclimate stretching for about 20km. It's an unusual but interesting enough place to spend some time camping and exploring; there are Inca and pre-Inca ruins hidden in the lomas, but today the area is virtually uninhabited. Just 10km before Chala stand the ruins of PUERTO INCA , the Incas' main port for Cusco, where there's an excellent beach and fine diving and fishing to be had. There's a small hotel on the beach, the Coste Hotel, Km 603, Panamerican Highway South (tel 034/210224; $20-30). To get to the ruins, take a taxi from Chala (about $10), or catch an Arequipa-bound bus along the Panamerican Highway and ask to be dropped off at Km 603. You can walk the 3-4km from here - a rustic but passable road follows a narrow gully to the coast. CHALA itself, the main port for Cusco until the construction of the Cusco-Arequipa rail line, is now an agreeable little fishing town, where you can overindulge in fresh seafood. If you want to stay in Chala, try the Hotel de Turistas (tel 014/501110; $20-30) for a little comfort, or the much more basic Hotel Grau ($5-10), close to the pleasant, sandy beach.
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