Nasca

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I was really looking forward to seeing for myself the Nasca lines, and I wasn´t disappointed. It is thought that these lines, geometric shapes and figures were made by the Paracas, Nazca and Wari peoples between 900 BC and 600 AD, yet it is still not really known why they were made, especially since they are so large they can only be seen properly from the air.Tons of theories abound, from the more logical ceremonial and astronomical angles, to the theory that they are landing sites for UFOs, or that they were made by a dotty German mathematician, Maria Reike, who studied them for most of the last century. We went up in tiny 4 seater planes, and I was glad I took a motion sickness tablet as we swooped, dived and cornered for about 30 mins to see 20 animal figures and many lines and shapes. There are 70 animal/plant figures in total, plus 800 straight lines and 300 geometric shapes. My favourite was the monkey and hummingbird, they reminded me of Quentin Blake´s illustrations.

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