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Published: August 17th 2014
We had a short one night stop in Nazca as I wanted to see the Nazca lines for myself and see what all the fuss is about. We arrived early in the morning on an overnight bus from Cusco and were met at the bus station by someone from the hostel. Once we had checked in we organised a car trip for the afternoon to see the Nazca lines and the less famous Palpa lines. We decided against the US$100 flight as we had heard from several people that it wasn't worth it and you may spend much of the flight trying to keep hold of your breakfast as the little plane banks from side to side to enable everyone onboard to see the lines on the ground.
The third and fourth World Cup playoff began half an hour before our tour so Gary watched the beginning of the game before managing to tear himself away from the TV for the tour. I was a little surprised Gary agreed to the afternoon tour knowing there was football on.
We began our tour by heading out to the furthest point on the tour which was the lookout tower in Palpa.
The Palpa lines are much easier to see than the Nazca lines as they are on the side of a hill. The main design is of a family - Famalia Real de Paracas. This was my favourite of all the designs we saw.
Our second stop was at the Maria Reiche museum. Maria was a German mathematician and researcher of the Nazca lines and the museum is in her old house. There are loads of pictures and many of her sketches, calculations and tools on display as well as the room where she lived.
The Nazca lines that we were able to see from the Nazca viewing tower were the hands and the tree. These are two of the smaller designs so we had no problems seeing them.
At our last stop we climbed a hill overlooking the Nazca lines for sunset. At the bottom of the hill we were able to get close to one of the many straight Nazca lines. All the lines were created by removing the dark stones and piling them up either side of the exposed lighter soil below. It is still not known why these lines and designs were created, it
is believed they were created between 900BC and 600AD.
I'm glad we visited Nazca and had a chance to see the Nazca and Palpa lines and I'm also happy with our decision not to take the flight in the little plane as I feel we would have just seen more of the same.
For our one night in Nazca we had booked a basic hotel for the night. They went out of their way to ensure we had a good stay as they had only just listed on the Booking.com website and we were the first to book and stay. We even had breakfast delivered to our room!
Next stop Huacachina for the Oasis and sandboarding.
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taracloud
Tara Cloud
Fabulous tips!
Wow, this is such a helpful blog! I also knew that I didn't want to pay $100, but hadn't heard of the Palca lines, this tour or the new hotel (I'd love to know its name). I really love this photo of a Nazca line which gives a great image of how big they are and how they were made--thanks!