Maria Reiche

---

My plan to get a 3pm bus from Nazca to Arequipa backfired when the bus was cancelled so I ended up with an extra ten hours in Nazca. (The bus toilet had broken, which is important when your journey is eight hours!)

So to use my time in an intelligent and informative way I unpacked my bikini and went to the Nazca Lines hotel and paid to use their swimming pool for the afternoon! It was rediculously hot and I had reached the end of my tether with the cat calling and whisteling from the Nazca men outside so the four hours I spent lazing in the sun and swimming in the pool were a very welcome break. There was a Canadian couple doing the same thing (yes, more Canadians!) and also a Scottish couple, and we all decided that to counter balance our afternoon of lazyness we would return to the hotel in the evening to attend the English language presentation about Maria Reiche and her work on the Nazca lines at the hotel´s little planetarium dedicated to her.

The remainder of this blog entry is for Gav, who was especially keen on the Nazca lines when we spoke before I set off!

The planetarium was really amazing and worth the ten hour bus wait! Furst we were able to look at the moon and Jupiter through a very good telescope which allowed you to see all of the craters on the moon and four of the moons around Jupiter. Then we were taken into the planetarium and given a presentation on Maria´s work on the lines, both in trying to understand them and in preserving them. She was first drawn to Peru to work as a teacher and nanny for a family in Cuzco, and later decided not to return to Germany as world war II had started. In 1940 she became an archeologist´s assistant and spent the next 40 years of her life dedicated to the lines. For the last ten years she lived at the hotel, but she was by this time blind so couldn´t continue her work.

Maria found that about 20% of the lines seem to be aligned with atronomical features, for example there is one that points to the area in which the sun sets in summer solstice, and the same for winter. There are also lines that point to certain stars and constellations and some of the pictures in the lines seem to align to pictures in constellations.

However there are so many different lines this could just be chance. Most scientists agree that the lines were linked to water supply, and to cermemonies, with Nazca people walking the lines to reach larger geometric shapes where gatherings were held.

All in all it was a really interesting evening and amazing how didicated Maria was to her work in Nazca. Seeing the lines was amazing, but learning more about them gave a whole new dimension.

PS Thanks to Paul for being as irratating as ever and pointing out my incorrect spelling of desert - sorry!

---

Comments

[Mum]

Cahuachi
Did you go to Cahuachi? Looked up the lines and quote"On the pampa, south of the Nazca Lines, archaeologists have now uncovered the lost city of the line-builders, Cahuachi. It was built nearly two thousand years ago and was mysteriously abandoned 500 years later. New discoveries at Cahuachi are at last beginning to give us insight into the Nazca people and to unravel the mystery of the Nasca Lines." Maybe it is too far from where you are? Love Mum