Nazca, Peru

After my sandboarding adventure, I took a quick bus to Nazca to check out the Nazca lines. Machu Picchu and the Nazca lines were the two things I wanted to make sure I saw while in Peru an with my arrival in Nazca I was about to check one of those off of my list.

I know it looks like nothing is in this picture, but there is a monkey in the lower left corner (I swear).

Little is known about these lines in the middle of the desert, other than they were constructed (or drawn) by the Nazca people sometime between 200 BC and 700 AD. Not very specific. Also, the lines cannot be seen from ground level, you have to be in the air before you realize what they are so their purpose is also a bit of a mystery. Were they meant to be seen by a deity from above? Were they part of an astronomical calendar? Were they just creative buggers with too much free time? Despite not knowing much about them, they were still interesting to see.

Hummingbird

I got up early in the morning to take a half hour flight over the desert outside of Nazca to see the lines. One of the things that surprised me was how hard to was to see some of the images. The lines really blended in with the surrounding sand, but they were still amazing to see nonetheless. The pictures aren´t great, you can definitely find better ones online, but they give you a sense of what was seen from the air.

After my flight, I was whisked away in a van to the Chauchilla Cemetary, a Nazca burial ground a little over 1000 years old. Because of the incredibly dry climate in the area (less than 1 mm of rain per year), bodies were preserved very well and this area is home to many mummies. Before it was discovered by archeologists, the many tombs were raided by local people and the bodies were left strewn about the desert, but archaeologists have moved the mummies back to restorations of tombs underground (although still uncovered so that tourists can gawk). Despite the restoration, there are still lots bone fragments that stick out of the sand in the area.

More pictures of the Nazca lines and Chuachilla Cemetary are at my Picassa site in the Peru folder: http://picasaweb.google.com/jmellgren