Giant drawings in the sand

Trip Start Dec 14, 2007

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187

Trip End Mar 16, 2009

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Flag of Peru Nasca, Peru
Friday, December 5, 2008

I thought a visit to the mysterious Nasca lines would gives us a better idea of what these strange shapes in the middle of the Peruvian desert actually meant and why they were put there. This was not to be the case as it appears no one actually really knows what the meanings of these mysterious shapes are. There are many theories that that speculate as to what the giant marking could be from astrological reflections created by the Inca's to the bizarre that aliens created the drawings.

The facts however are that the mysterious markings are spread across a staggering 500 square km's and forms a network of almost 800 lines. The lines were first found in 1939, when 300 geometric figures, 70 animal shapes and plant drawings were discovered. The Nasca lines can only truly be appreciated from the air as the lines were made by removing sun darkened stones from the desert surface to expose the lighter soil below, so that's exactly what we did.

Flight across the lines had recently been regulated after an accident and now all flights took off and arrived at the local airport and flew a fixed route over the lines to avoid potential mid air collisions. We boarded a small four seater aircraft and took off soon after a short description by the pilot of sights we be seeing and how to look out for them. It was good weather for flying with clear skies but the stiff breeze and the hot air rising from the desert made the flight a little more turbulent that I'd usually prefer.

As soon as we spotted the first shaped we quickly forgot about the turbulence and stared in awe at the strange shapes below us.

The Whale

What really surprised me was the sheer size of the drawings with some of them a few kilometres long. Some of the shapes include birds, a spider, a monkey (which was Inge-Marie's favourite), a whale but the strangest by far was the image of a waving astronaut. Considering these lines were made somewhere between 900 BC and 600 AD, hundreds of years before space travel and astronauts were even a dream left a lot of questions unanswered.

Who and why these strange lines were created will most likely remain a mystery, my theory however is that they were created by someone who clearly had a lot of free time on their hands or some very sophisticated tools. Why go to all that effort for something that can't quite be appreciated from ground level. Whether it was the work of outer space visitors or intelligent human astronomers it still was an unforgettable 30 minutes that wont be forgotten in a hurry.

Back in Nasca we had a few hours to kill before catching our overnight bus to Cusco which gave us time to stroll around the dusty little town and catch up on the blog, thanks to some free WiFi. We forked out a little extra money to get comfy seats or semi-beds on the Cruz del Sur bus line which didn't turn out to be that comfortable after all especially for the price. One consolation was that we had a dedicate toilet for 1st class section which came in handy after I contracted a stomach bug on top of my flu! The joys of travel....