Nazca, Peru – February 6, 2011
Our bus is delayed for an hour and a half so I thought I’d try to summarize what we’ve been doing since my last blog. Basically we finished the drive into Nazca last night, had dinner at our hotel, got up this morning for breakfast at the hotel, went for a quick flight over the Nazca lines, had lunch, took an afternoon walk through the Chauchilla Cemetery, visited a local pottery studio, went back to our hotel and packed our bags, came in to town for dinner and we’re now sitting at the bus stop. So let’s see what I can tell you that was exciting about the above.
I think I ended the last blog as we entered the hills above the dessert. The road, the Pan American Highway to be precise, wound up and down hill sides and we seemed to be flying around the corners. The highway only has one lane going each way so anytime a truck was slowing traffic down everyone was driving in the wrong lane even if it was a solid double line. It was rather scary at times and I found it much more relaxing to be looking up the side windows at the scenery. We had been talking about how flat it was and how much dessert there was and all of a sudden we were into the hills. After too many minutes of winding roads and hills, we suddenly found ourselves overlooking incredibly lush valleys. These were a colourful treat after the non-stop grey of the hillsides. We would go down into the valleys and then immediately start climbing on the other side to get over another pass. And as we approached Nazca and someone wondered how on earth they carved drawings with all these hills, suddenly we were back on totally flat land that was as barren as any we’d ever seen. There was absolutely nothing on the ground except for a few rocks, which I guess made it a great place to draw lines and images. If you were just driving along the road you would not know that there was anything special around you. At one point they have a tower you can climb up, probably about four storeys, and from there you could see two figures ( a tree and a pair of hands) and some of the triangles and lines – but more on those later.,
We arrived at our hotel sometime after 7 p.m. and met for dinner and a meeting at 8 p.m. Our resort is about 20 minutes outside of town on a very dry, bumpy dirt road. However, the resort itself is very nice and very quiet. Although we didn’t have any hot water for showers we all did get a good sleep. Breakfast was okay but nothing special and soon we were off for our next adventure. We drove to the airport and checked in for our flight. Because we were flying in small planes (maximum 8 seater) we had to be assigned seats to keep the plane balanced. Our co-pilot was very good at explaining what was going to happen and telling us to just look down the wing and shoot wide angle when he said something was in sight. It was good advice and something that the other flights didn’t get and some of them were sick as they tried to look through their view finders and use their zoom lenses. I’m not sure any of my pictures will be worth saving but at least I wasn’t sick during the flight.
The Nazca Lines are Peru’s second most popular tourist attraction after Machu Picchu. These famous geoglyphs can only be seen from the air so were not discovered until the last century and weren’t really studied until the 1930’s. A German mathematician, Maria Reiche, spend over 60 years studying the lines and much of the area is named in her honour. There are various theories about who made the lines and when and how but there are still a lot of unknowns. The best guess is that the lines were made between 100 and 750 AD. They were made by clearing away the dirt or top lay so that the second whiter layer of dirt was exposed. The figures are precise in measurement and the lines are straight (some are 30 miles in length!) so the people were obviously trained in engineering or something similar. The meaning and use of the figures is more confusing. Some thought they were based on constellations and some thought they were indicating water sources, but in reality no one knows. They are large with some the size of a football field. And while the lines and triangles are quite basic, some of the other drawings are quite intricate with geographic patterns. My favourites were the hummingbird and the tree. Some of the others are the monkey, whale, astronaut, spider and the condor.
The plane ride was only 30 minutes long but we were at the airport from about 9 a.m. until after noon. It’s low season right now but we still had to wait. Given how they fly their routes you certainly wouldn’t want too many planes up there at once so I really didn’t mind the wait. (I did mind the weight thought!) The pilots fly a given route and we each have a map of what’s coming up next. The co-pilot announces what’s coming up and on which side. Then he lets us know the precise moment it is under the tip of the specified wing. And, as they let people on both sides of the airplane see the drawing, this means you do a lot of leaning left and right during the flight. It really was quite a roller coaster ride, and most of the time I just kept snapping pictures because you couldn’t actually see what you were looking for until after it went by. I don’t think many of my pictures will turn out but I bought a book so hopefully the pictures there will make up for my poor photography. I will say the figures really are quite amazing whether you are looking at them from a plane or the tower or in pictures. It really is incredible to know that someone did these so long ago and they are still in existence. But in a barren land where you only get a total of 15 inches of rain a year, the lines would definitely last for a long time.
Another thing that lasted for a long time were the burial sites. The people who lived here from 500 BC right up to the 16th century all buried their dead in this area. The Chauchilla necropolis was our afternoon visit. All we knew is that we were going to a cemetery. When we got there we realized it really wasn’t anything we had expected. The government has opened and covered 10 tombs in the one area. The cemetery itself is one kilometer long and 350 meters wide. There are thought to be over 500 tombs in the area each with an average of 10 people interred. The bodies are well preserved and it is amazing to see them still in their funeral chamber. When buried they are wrapped in clothes and cotton and placed in a fetal position in a basket. Grave robbers have removed any valuables from the tombs and from the area. Special leaves and herbs are included in the basket to preserve the body. There were shallow graves for the young and deeper graves for the older people and the royalty. They were buried with some important items and valuables but most of those were taken by the grave robbers, whom our guide says were Spanish. All bodies were buried facing the east for the sunrise. Some had very long hair and some had short hair and some had no hair. During certain periods they practiced skull elongation so there were some oblong heads. The Nazca people were reportedly very healthy as witnessed by the healthy bones and teeth. This was likely the result of a healthy diet rich in fish fresh from the sea and the vegetables and fruit that they grew. Each of the ten sites had a different arrangement but basically they were all the same. Because there is no rain in the area the bodies stayed dry and because the bodies were bound in cloth and cotton and lots of leaves and herbs, they have remained in a very well preserved state for over 1,500 years.
The highest sand dune in the world is in this area and it is over 2000 meters. It looks like a snow covered hill amongst all the other darker hills so it really stands out. They grow cotton in this area and they obviously have for centuries. As you drive along the road you see large white stones in amongst the grey ones and we found out today that this is salt as the area was formerly an ocean. We also passed one area that had piles of green in it and that turned out to be seaweed that was trucked from the Pacific for processing and packaging. There are fields of planted cactus which seemed really strange row after row and field after field but apparently the cactus attracts a certain beetle called a cochineal and that bug is important in producing a die for food colouring and other purposes.
Nazca is a lovely little town with busy streets and nice central squares. The people seem very friendly and the food is very good with a variety from Chinese food to Italian as well as traditional dishes. Unlike the surrounding countryside, the city seems reasonably clean. There are lots of little stores and shops selling everything imaginable. I didn’t spend a lot of time in town so can’t say much more about it.
The temperature is always hot and it seldom rains so it should be an ideal place to live in my opinion. The wind was blowing continually while we were in the area and the dirt and sand were driving my contacts crazy. Otherwise, I liked the climate. However, with only 15 minutes of rain a year, it is also a very dry place. There is a big river bed with just a tiny stream in it at the moment. For eight months of the year it is totally dry. In January or early February (now) the water starts to return as the rains start to fall up in the mountains. By March the river will be flowing in full and then drop down again in April and dry up in May. The inhabitants of the city have water piped to their homes. The farmers have wells. When the water level gets low no one has water. When it gets bad in the city they get 30 minutes of water every second day so they really have to collect their water and store it and use it very conservatively. I’m not sure that I, or most of the people I know, would be able to survive like that.
Okay, I guess that’s it for Nazca. It’s now 11:40 p.m. and our bus was supposed to be here and ready to leave at 11:30 p.m. so I’d better shut this off and pack up and get ready to go. We will be on the bus for 10 hours so we’re all hoping to get some sleep. I can’t normally sleep on a bus but I might be able to do so tonight. At dinner she mentioned that it was a long winding road so I just took their equivalent of a Gravol and hopefully it both puts me to sleep and keeps my stomach calm. If not, it could be a really long night.
And I sure hope this is complete and correct because I forgot about it and don’t have time to go back and check it all again now. My apologies for any errors.
Our bus is delayed for an hour and a half so I thought I’d try to summarize what we’ve been doing since my last blog. Basically we finished the drive into Nazca last night, had dinner at our hotel, got up this morning for breakfast at the hotel, went for a quick flight over the Nazca lines, had lunch, took an afternoon walk through the Chauchilla Cemetery, visited a local pottery studio, went back to our hotel and packed our bags, came in to town for dinner and we’re now sitting at the bus stop. So let’s see what I can tell you that was exciting about the above.
I think I ended the last blog as we entered the hills above the dessert. The road, the Pan American Highway to be precise, wound up and down hill sides and we seemed to be flying around the corners. The highway only has one lane going each way so anytime a truck was slowing traffic down everyone was driving in the wrong lane even if it was a solid double line. It was rather scary at times and I found it much more relaxing to be looking up the side windows at the scenery. We had been talking about how flat it was and how much dessert there was and all of a sudden we were into the hills. After too many minutes of winding roads and hills, we suddenly found ourselves overlooking incredibly lush valleys. These were a colourful treat after the non-stop grey of the hillsides. We would go down into the valleys and then immediately start climbing on the other side to get over another pass. And as we approached Nazca and someone wondered how on earth they carved drawings with all these hills, suddenly we were back on totally flat land that was as barren as any we’d ever seen. There was absolutely nothing on the ground except for a few rocks, which I guess made it a great place to draw lines and images. If you were just driving along the road you would not know that there was anything special around you. At one point they have a tower you can climb up, probably about four storeys, and from there you could see two figures ( a tree and a pair of hands) and some of the triangles and lines – but more on those later.,
We arrived at our hotel sometime after 7 p.m. and met for dinner and a meeting at 8 p.m. Our resort is about 20 minutes outside of town on a very dry, bumpy dirt road. However, the resort itself is very nice and very quiet. Although we didn’t have any hot water for showers we all did get a good sleep. Breakfast was okay but nothing special and soon we were off for our next adventure. We drove to the airport and checked in for our flight. Because we were flying in small planes (maximum 8 seater) we had to be assigned seats to keep the plane balanced. Our co-pilot was very good at explaining what was going to happen and telling us to just look down the wing and shoot wide angle when he said something was in sight. It was good advice and something that the other flights didn’t get and some of them were sick as they tried to look through their view finders and use their zoom lenses. I’m not sure any of my pictures will be worth saving but at least I wasn’t sick during the flight.
The Nazca Lines are Peru’s second most popular tourist attraction after Machu Picchu. These famous geoglyphs can only be seen from the air so were not discovered until the last century and weren’t really studied until the 1930’s. A German mathematician, Maria Reiche, spend over 60 years studying the lines and much of the area is named in her honour. There are various theories about who made the lines and when and how but there are still a lot of unknowns. The best guess is that the lines were made between 100 and 750 AD. They were made by clearing away the dirt or top lay so that the second whiter layer of dirt was exposed. The figures are precise in measurement and the lines are straight (some are 30 miles in length!) so the people were obviously trained in engineering or something similar. The meaning and use of the figures is more confusing. Some thought they were based on constellations and some thought they were indicating water sources, but in reality no one knows. They are large with some the size of a football field. And while the lines and triangles are quite basic, some of the other drawings are quite intricate with geographic patterns. My favourites were the hummingbird and the tree. Some of the others are the monkey, whale, astronaut, spider and the condor.
The plane ride was only 30 minutes long but we were at the airport from about 9 a.m. until after noon. It’s low season right now but we still had to wait. Given how they fly their routes you certainly wouldn’t want too many planes up there at once so I really didn’t mind the wait. (I did mind the weight thought!) The pilots fly a given route and we each have a map of what’s coming up next. The co-pilot announces what’s coming up and on which side. Then he lets us know the precise moment it is under the tip of the specified wing. And, as they let people on both sides of the airplane see the drawing, this means you do a lot of leaning left and right during the flight. It really was quite a roller coaster ride, and most of the time I just kept snapping pictures because you couldn’t actually see what you were looking for until after it went by. I don’t think many of my pictures will turn out but I bought a book so hopefully the pictures there will make up for my poor photography. I will say the figures really are quite amazing whether you are looking at them from a plane or the tower or in pictures. It really is incredible to know that someone did these so long ago and they are still in existence. But in a barren land where you only get a total of 15 inches of rain a year, the lines would definitely last for a long time.
Another thing that lasted for a long time were the burial sites. The people who lived here from 500 BC right up to the 16th century all buried their dead in this area. The Chauchilla necropolis was our afternoon visit. All we knew is that we were going to a cemetery. When we got there we realized it really wasn’t anything we had expected. The government has opened and covered 10 tombs in the one area. The cemetery itself is one kilometer long and 350 meters wide. There are thought to be over 500 tombs in the area each with an average of 10 people interred. The bodies are well preserved and it is amazing to see them still in their funeral chamber. When buried they are wrapped in clothes and cotton and placed in a fetal position in a basket. Grave robbers have removed any valuables from the tombs and from the area. Special leaves and herbs are included in the basket to preserve the body. There were shallow graves for the young and deeper graves for the older people and the royalty. They were buried with some important items and valuables but most of those were taken by the grave robbers, whom our guide says were Spanish. All bodies were buried facing the east for the sunrise. Some had very long hair and some had short hair and some had no hair. During certain periods they practiced skull elongation so there were some oblong heads. The Nazca people were reportedly very healthy as witnessed by the healthy bones and teeth. This was likely the result of a healthy diet rich in fish fresh from the sea and the vegetables and fruit that they grew. Each of the ten sites had a different arrangement but basically they were all the same. Because there is no rain in the area the bodies stayed dry and because the bodies were bound in cloth and cotton and lots of leaves and herbs, they have remained in a very well preserved state for over 1,500 years.
The highest sand dune in the world is in this area and it is over 2000 meters. It looks like a snow covered hill amongst all the other darker hills so it really stands out. They grow cotton in this area and they obviously have for centuries. As you drive along the road you see large white stones in amongst the grey ones and we found out today that this is salt as the area was formerly an ocean. We also passed one area that had piles of green in it and that turned out to be seaweed that was trucked from the Pacific for processing and packaging. There are fields of planted cactus which seemed really strange row after row and field after field but apparently the cactus attracts a certain beetle called a cochineal and that bug is important in producing a die for food colouring and other purposes.
Nazca is a lovely little town with busy streets and nice central squares. The people seem very friendly and the food is very good with a variety from Chinese food to Italian as well as traditional dishes. Unlike the surrounding countryside, the city seems reasonably clean. There are lots of little stores and shops selling everything imaginable. I didn’t spend a lot of time in town so can’t say much more about it.
The temperature is always hot and it seldom rains so it should be an ideal place to live in my opinion. The wind was blowing continually while we were in the area and the dirt and sand were driving my contacts crazy. Otherwise, I liked the climate. However, with only 15 minutes of rain a year, it is also a very dry place. There is a big river bed with just a tiny stream in it at the moment. For eight months of the year it is totally dry. In January or early February (now) the water starts to return as the rains start to fall up in the mountains. By March the river will be flowing in full and then drop down again in April and dry up in May. The inhabitants of the city have water piped to their homes. The farmers have wells. When the water level gets low no one has water. When it gets bad in the city they get 30 minutes of water every second day so they really have to collect their water and store it and use it very conservatively. I’m not sure that I, or most of the people I know, would be able to survive like that.
Okay, I guess that’s it for Nazca. It’s now 11:40 p.m. and our bus was supposed to be here and ready to leave at 11:30 p.m. so I’d better shut this off and pack up and get ready to go. We will be on the bus for 10 hours so we’re all hoping to get some sleep. I can’t normally sleep on a bus but I might be able to do so tonight. At dinner she mentioned that it was a long winding road so I just took their equivalent of a Gravol and hopefully it both puts me to sleep and keeps my stomach calm. If not, it could be a really long night.
And I sure hope this is complete and correct because I forgot about it and don’t have time to go back and check it all again now. My apologies for any errors.
posted by Jayne Brooks @ 4:16 PM
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