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Published: November 8th 2005
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The Astronaut
This is the austronaut. Hope you can make him out waving to you from the hill!! Sunday 6 November
Hi Folks,
Think I got my diary dates wrong for Friday and Saturday - sorry!! Anyway - here goes with the rest of my great weekend!!
On Sunday morning I woke up early after a great night´s sleep to have breakfast with the others on the trip and then head off to see the amazing Nazca lines. Nazca appears to be spelt interchangeably in Peru with a ´Z´ and a ´C´. Not quite sure which is correct.
Anyway, the Nazcas are an historic Peruvian culture which predated the Incas. They drew some amazing pictures in the desert area around Nazca which were only discovered in the current century. They are only visible from the air, and the Peruvians were totally unaware that they existed, so much so that they built the Pan American highway tight through the middle of them!! They were discovered by a scientist who flew across the area in a plane and have subsequently been subject to numeous studies!! No real explanation for these lines has been agreed upon. One theory is that they depict an ancient astronomical calendar, and another is that they were a tribute to the gods of
The Monkey
This is my favourite - a combination of a large spiral for the tail and geometric lines for the body - very complex!! the desert to request rain. There is also no explanation re why the Nazca culture finally became extinct. It´s all a bit of a mystery. Have bought an incredible book about the Nazcas and the lines if anyone is interested in reading further.
We set out in a five man plane to fly across the desert and see the lines and followed a formal route to see them. The plane journey was interesting. At times I thought the pilot was actually going to dig the tip of his wing into the desert so we could get a good view of the lines. There were lots of dips, turns and almost flips - even more so than in a helicopter, but it let us get an amazing view and (what I hope you will think are) fantastic photos!!
My favourite was definitely the monkey - I´m sure that most of you know I have a bit of a thing about monkeys and especially gorillas!! That aside, the monkey (for me) was probably one of the most interesting and complex shapes the Nazca people formed. I have attached the photos I took and think they are fairly self explanatory. I
The Dog
Hope you can make him out!! hope you can make out the shapes and that the photos convey how difficult it must have been to create these shapes in the desert. Some of them are more than 100m in length. The question I asked myself was that if they are only visible from the air, then how did the Nazca people manage to draw them so perfectly??!! Not quite on a par with the Grand Canyon for me, but pretty close!!
After seeing the Nazca lines, we headed to the Nazca museum where we some some examples of the Nazca mummy heads (the heads of their enemies), some almost perfectly preserved Nazca pottery, examples of the water channels they dug in the desert, and also Nazca burial sites and some genuine Nazca mummies. The Nazcas buried their dead in the foetal position in the belief that you should be buried in the same position as you entered the world. They also buried pottery and food with their dead for use in the afterlife. It was all really interesting.
After the museum, we headed to a pottery shop where pottery is made in the same style as adopted by the Nazca people. The pottery is
The Spider
You might need to enlarge to full size on your screens. They look good full size and you can see the shapes fairly clearly! made from clay and hand designed (without the use of a wheel). It is then painted using natural ores and colours from desert rocks. It´s then smoothed using stones rubbed with oil from the human nose (you basically rub the stone against your nose and then rub the pottery with it). After this it is put in the oven to fire then allowed to set. Pretty amazing.
We then went to visit a guy who demonstrated the process for extracting gold in the Nazca area. Again all fairly manual with heavy reliance on use of mercury, which is highly poisonous. It appears to be used with little concern for safety and there is little consideration re disposal of the effluent waste. Guess they are all too keen to make their fortunes by discovering gold!! The guy was very cheesy (got out his guitar and serenaded us with Beatles songs - very badly I may add) and was desperate to sell us some gold produce.
After this we took the bus to Pisco and then a cab from there to Paracas which is right beside the Pacific ocean. We went for a nice meal in Paracas, and watched the
Condor
One of the larger images sunset (photos attached). We stayed there in a very pleasant hotel overnight, as we were off on a trip to the Ballestas islands the next morning. In Paracas we were basically in the South West of Peru - almost close to the bottom. The next stop westward out across the Pacific is Australia!!
Nazca lines were incredible - absolutely the highlight of the trip for me. Hope that you like the photos!!
Lesley x
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MUM
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NASCA LINES
PHOTOS A BIT LIGHT BUT WILL SEE YOUR ORIGINALS. ALL THE GOOD COLOURED ONES DONT SEEM TO PRINT BUT ILL KEEP TRYING