Some reckon the designs were a form of communication between the Nazca people and their Gods, while others are convinced that they're alien landing strips! A more practical suggestion is that the lines are a map, pointing towards water sources, but the most common explanation seems to be that it's an astrological calendar with the symbols relating to celestial positions at the time... who knows!
Our first glimpse of the lines came as we drove along the Pan American highway. (The road was built before the lines were made a UNESCO World Heritage Site, so they went and put it right through the middle of some of the lines!) From a watchtower we were able to see the 'hands' and the 'tree'. The watchtower didn't do the lines much justice, but we got an appreciation of their size and detail.
Impressed, we booked a flight over the Nazca desert for the next day to see them in their full glory. We were pretty lucky to get places on one of the 6-seater planes, as many travellers get put on a waiting list, however we were told we would recieve confirmation an hour beforehand, so we had to stay in close proximity to the tiny airport!
The next morning we visited Chauchilla cemetary, home of the most incredible mummies in the world. They were still dressed in the clothes that they were buried in, and some even had their extraordinarily long dreadlocks still attached!
We recieved the call for our flight just as we were tucking into a huge lunch of chicken and chicha morada (a traditional Peruvian drink made from purple corn). Unfortunately Sam wasn't feeling too good and didn't want to risk being sick on the notoriously bumpy plane ride, so Jo went up some of the girls we were travelling with instead. We'd been warned not to fly on a full stomach, but due to the lack of warning we didn't have much choice!
All started well; we squeezed into the tiny plane and were handed a map of our route and some headphones... Within minutes the pilot was enthusiastically pointing out the first of the strange images drawn on to the desert floor. At first Jo couldn't see a thing, but the as plane circled, a distinct image of a whale came into view!
Over the next half an hour the pilot flew us to see each amazing drawing one by one - trapezoids, astronaut (definitely an alien), monkey with extraordinarily curly tail (Jo's favourite), dog, condor, spider and more!
We were almost home safe and dry, when minutes before landing, the Norwegian girl sat next to Jo was explosively sick... bringing up the entire chicken lunch she'd just eaten (which came out a florescent shade of pink due to the chicha morada!) Jo doesn't want to go into too much detail about this ordeal, but it's safe to say that the extremely compact seats at the back of that 6-seater plane were not a pleasant place to be.
Relieved to land and clean up, we all reflected that the lines were well worth the flight and even the pink vomit did not stain an incredible visit to Nazca!
No comments:
Post a Comment