17-Jul-2004 -- Shortly after finding this web site, I made a visit to an already visited confluence, 12S 77W in Lima, Peru, on April 4, 2004.

Looking for more sites nearby, I noted that 15S 75W had also been visited, but was incomplete, therefore still up for grabs for a successful first visit. I decided then to go complete the visit. Circumstances conspired against me, and I could not go until July. Meanwhile, three other confluence points had been successfully visited in Peru, and the narrative in one actually says they thought of going to 15S 75W, but fortunately for me, they did not, for some reason. Interest in confluences in Peru was clearly increasing and I was getting concerned that someone would beat me to the confluence that I had been watching.

After trying to organize a visit as part of another trip South of Lima for several months, I finally decided to just do it. Early on the morning of Saturday, July 17, 2004 I left Lima's perpetual winter overcast and headed South on the Pan American highway, breaking out into the desert sunshine after two hours. I was alone with my driver this trip as I could not find anyone else willing to invest a day in such a silly endeavour as looking for imaginary lines in the desert.

Since 15S 75W had already been visited and described, I knew exactly where it was, and that it would be very easy to find once I got near it. I calculated I should reach it in 5 1/2 hours of driving. Times two to return, plus some extra time, and I felt I could do it in one 13 hour day. I set off at 7AM I got there on time at 12:30PM and took the required pictures. As you can see, other than the long drive, the site is almost embarrassingly easy to get to. On this day, it plotted on the shoulder of the highway about 1 metre off the pavement. The altitude is 540 masl.

When I got near, I hopped out of the car, found the point with my GPS, took the pics, checked them in the digital camera, looked around a bit and hopped back in for the ride home. The pics show that there is not much to see at the site, mostly sand.

On the way back, we passed a lookout tower near the Nazca lines, and I climbed it to look around. I am planning a flight over the lines later this year, so for now I was satisfied with a limited look.

We stopped for a celebratory lunch at a well known (if you are a local!) restaurant in a town called Palpa to the North of Nazca. The specialty is river shrimp, called camarones here, and it was a very good cap to a successful hunt.

We got back to Lima at about 7PM, ending my first successful confluence hunt.