Mysterious forms in the desert
Trip Start
Dec 30, 2007
1
36
50
Trip End
Jun 22, 2008
Nasca,
Nasca,
Peru
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Feeling the pressure of time now, we had arranged a bus for the night that we got in from the Canyon. It wasn't going, but they could take us to one that was. So why did they sell us a ticket? I can only speculate, but I assume that they didn't have enough takers. In the end the bus they put us on was cheaper, but we had some alarming moments. We got to the second bus terminal at 9.30pm. Money changed hands and we were given a ticket. Departure time was 9.00 pm. We sought clarification. We got it. The bus left at 9.00. We remonstrated with the man on the desk who simply reiterated th 9pm departure time (writing it down as if we were slow) and told us to wait for 'a little moment'. What we were supposed to wait for was not clear, if the bus had really left. But we doubted that was the case. In the end a bus did arrive and we got on it and it went where we wanted to go.
The condor
But it arrived at its own private terminal, and now we realised a problem. We were supposed to be met by a man from an agency who was to take us to the airport to see the Nazca lines, and now were were at the wrong terminal. We located the right terminal. He wasn't there. A helpful lady was, who told us that it was very common for people to turn up in Nazca with pre-booked tours that didn't exist. I didn't think that is what had happened here, but it made for a grim morning, especially as none of the three phone numbers on our receipt worked. It was a relief when our man turned up.
The lines
The lines are a great enigma that drive people to the most loopy explanations. They cover some 500 square km of desert, created by removing rocks so us to expose pale subsoil, and piling the rocks beside. The result is figures of animals, geometric shapes and seemingly random lines. Although they must have been made over a great period of time, they are usually said to be simply 2000 years old. In fact the geometric patterns are more recent, frequently cutting through the older animal designs. The culture is conventionally dated from about 500 bc to 450 or 500 ad, so you see that the 2000 year old story is simply taking the average.
The "tree" and the "hands" (also a bus for scale)
I had read a little about them. Possible explanations include running tracks (!), calendars, weaving designs (!), a map of the Tiwanaku empire and an irrigation system. Need I mention extra-terrestrials? I thought that for once the most likely explanation was one of worship/devotion. I was both pleased and disappointed to find that this is actually the favoured theory locally.
We flew over them. They really are impressive, especially the animal figures. The execution of such large figures must have been extraordinarily difficult, as they cannot be properly seen except from the air. One figure that I was disappointed to miss is of an orca with a trophy head. The Nascans evidently worshipped orcas and a good deal of their art work includes orcas with a human head suspended below. We did see plenty of other figures though - the humming bird, condor, monkey, whale and the ambiguous 'astronaut' figure.
Chauchila cemetery
We decided that we would go to the macabre Chauchila cemetery after all, making for a pretty busy (and expensive) day, but we were only giving ourselves one day here and wanted to make the most of it
"Trophy heads" from Nazca culture
. This site is where the Chincha people dug tombs and buried their dead. They have not been allowed to rest in peace, with the bodies being disinterred since Inca times. The site was unprotected until recently and modern grave robbers have almost completely looted the site. Now, one can look in any direction and see dozens of depressions, marking where graves have been broken into and not quite completely filled up with sand again. It would be a sad place in any event, but the ruthless greed and the loss of knowledge make it depressing. Even sadder is that the largest category of skeletons that have been found come from young children. Shards of bone litter the ground.
Tombs have been recreated with skeletons placed in the foetal position, based on the few unlooted tombs that have been located. It was interesting to see very large tombs with divisions inside. These were family tombs with the division separating the generations.
Museum
We finished the day with a trip to the Antonini museum from where much of the details above were gleaned. It is a good museum, with a lot of emphasis on the actual process of the excavations in the area. One interesting fact is that the area used to have a great deal of a tree that loves the water. It is no longer found in this desert. It suggests that this climatic change may have been what did in the Nascans.
