Tiwul Serawot Blog: Nazca

Nazca is only about two hours from Ica so we arrived in Nazca in the afternoon and was it ever hot in the desert. We got a hostel and then explored the town a little in an attempt to find somewhere to do a sobrevuelo (overflight) of the Nazca lines. Hostels are often in cahoots with particular tour companies and I'm fairly sure these arrangements are entirely informal and probably drive up the price due to the convenience factor. We ended up paying extra for a smaller three passenger Cessna that can fly at about 1700 ft. This meant that we got to circle each geoglyph twice at a fairly good distance. After going through an extremely paltry security check in the airport we were on the tarmac and ready to go. We spoke earlier with some Australian folks who had gone taken a flight earlier and they said to not eat before hand since the flight is quite turbulent, unfortunately they told us this over lunch just before we left for the airport. Well the pilot flew us to each geoglyph and banked sharply to give us a straight down look at each symbol. All the banking from left to right and back again can definitely make the stomach turn a little but luckily none of us lost our lunch. Although even myself, who never experiences nausea associate with vehicles felt a little wobbly after getting out of the plane. The entire fight was only about 25 minutes but was definitely all we could take with those maneuvers. (click photos for better view)

Alcatraz

Let me explain these geoglyph a little. They were constructed about 500 years ago by the Nazca people who lived in this area and built these massive symbol in the sand. This was done by removing the top layer of oxidized (rusted) sand and rock to reveal the lighter coloured earth underneath. Some of the symbols are over 270m in length while others are as small as 40m. The Nazca desert has very stable weather and virtually no wind so the symbols are still visible today. There are more symbols than I was able to photograph, there are several hundred that are mostly simple lines or geometric shapes and a few dozen that resemble animals, plants or people. No one knows for sure what the purpose of all these designs for though it seems that they had some sort of religious significance. Though that surely hasn't stopped people from attributing hundreds of paranormal theories to the lines (especially the human figure they call 'The Astronaut' or 'The Extraterrestrial').

Monkey

You will notice that some of the figures have lines going straight through them. Some of these lines were also built by the Nazca and represent solstice lines. Others are erosion from human activity. Like many of the sights in Peru the lines have their own preservation difficulties. They are impossible to notice from the ground so people have unknowingly built in and around them. Also the Pan-American was built straight through the tail of the lizard (not pictured). There is however quite a bit of concern that the lines could disappear if weather conditions change and more rainfall occurs since the lines are only 10-30 cm deep.

Condor