The Nazca Lines

Trip Start Feb 15, 2008
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7
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Trip End May 31, 2008


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Where I stayed
Overnight bus to Arequipa with Cruz de Sur
(Lima hotels)

Flag of Peru  ,
Tuesday, February 26, 2008

The best time to take a flight over the Nazca Lines is in the morning and the earlier the better. At this time there is usually no wind and clear visibility. Our flight over the lines set off at 8.30am. Taking a flight over this, one of the world's great mysteries, is another must do if you are visiting this region. The Nazca Lines are a series of geoglyphs located in the Nazca Desert, a high arid plateau that stretches 53 miles or more than 80 kilometers between the towns of Nazca and Palpa on the Pampas de Jumana in Peru. They were created by the Nazca culture between 200 BC and AD 700. There are hundreds of individual figures, ranging in complexity from simple lines to figures representing a whale, humming, spider, monkey, llama, dog and even an alien. The Nazca lines cannot be recognized except from the air. Since it is presumed the Nazca people could only have seen their work the ground, there is still much speculation about the builders' motives. There are a number of theories ranging from relevance to celestial bodies to indication of underground water reserves, or if you prefer visitations from extraterrestrials; though as yet none of these theories have any conclusive support Nazca Lines
Nazca Lines
 . It is best to book through one of the many tour companies at least the day before you want to take a flight or you may find yourself sitting around the little airport waiting all day for someone to take you up. We booked through Nazca Trails.
In the afternoon we took another tour with Nazca Trails to the Chauchilla cemetery where Nazcans buried their dead. Interestingly the dead Nazcans were placed in the foetal position. Tombs were equipped with everything that a Nazcan would require in the afterlife: pottery, gold, clothes, food and of cause your guts, which like the Egyptians, were put into a pot beside the mommy. Mommies were preserved naturally by the completely dry conditions of the desert. For many years Chauchilla cemetery was looted by treasure hunters, who destroyed the site, taking away the treasures the mummies kept in their tombs. Grave robbers only left behind the corpses, which can be seen today smashed all over the ground. A few years ago a group of archaeologists began work on reordering and preserving a number of the tombs. Skulls, bones, 4 meter long human dreadlocks, ceramic fragments and other remains including mummified babies can be seen at the site. Our tour also included a visit to a Nazca Ceramic workshop, where we had a look at the old technique of making Nazcan pots and a visit to the gold extraction centre to see how the people extracted gold using huge mortars to grind the gold bearing rock.
The town of Nazca itself is small though has everything a tourist would want. It's lively and all the shops and restaurants are open till late. That night I was off on the overnight bus to Arequipa and my friend Milagros headed off in the other direction back to Lima to return to work.
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