Nasca

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After Arequipa, my trip was suddenly coming to an end and I was looking forward to arriving back to Ayacucho. So I just wanted to speed through my remaining sites. Although northbound, I was visiting the south coast of Peru.

From Arequipa, I took the 12-hour Cruz del Sur night bus to Nasca, a little town of 53,000 inhabitants located on the Panamericana [the Pan-American Highway]. I was to arrive to Nasca at 5 a.m. and would have time to speedily see the Nasca Lines and be on my way again.

I wake up at 6.30 a.m. thinking it strange that we weren’t in Nasca yet, when the bus stops at 7 a.m. and we are suddenly in Ica. Although it was my fault I overslept, Cruz del Sur prides itself with being the best company in Peru. We had passport control and a metal detector before we got on the bus, the least they could have done was to make sure everyone going to Nasca go off. The terramosa was very rude and got all defensive way too fast. So I get off the bus in Ica and they tell me that my luggage is in Nasca. And I’m like, “But I didn’t get off in Nasca!” They even wrote down the ticket number of my backpack because it was the only one that hadn’t been picked up in Nasca. I’m listening to all this in disbelief. You would think it was the first time it happened. Real idiots. Fantastic service.

So I caught a bus back to Nasca with the company Soyuz and the service was very good. I was warned twice to keep my stuff on my lap, otherwise it might disappear. It was also quite cheap. The bus driver even dropped me off at the mirador of the Nasca Lines which was on the way.

Spread across an incredible 500-sq-km plain in the Pampa Colorada, the Nasca Lines remain one of the world’s great archeological mysteries. Consisting of 800 straight lines, 300 geometric figures (geoglyphs), and some 70 spectacular animal and plant drawings (biomorphs), the lines are unnoticeable at ground level. When viewed from above they form a striking network of figures. The lines were made by removing the dark stones from the surface of the desert and piling them up on either side of the lines, thus exposing the lighter, powdery gypsum-laden soil beneath. Although many theories exist, it is unknown who constructed the Lines and why. And how did they know what they were doing when the lines can only be properly appreciated from the air? The fact that no information about the Lines exists implies that they date back to the pre-Columbian era. Discovered in 1939 by North American scientist Paul Kosok when he flew across the desert, the lines were declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1994. [info from Lonely Planet]

The best way to see the Nasca Lines is to fly over them for $40, so I opted out of that and instead went to the mirador for 1 sol. From the mirador you can only see the full bird figure (officially the hand or frog figure, but to me it looks like a bird), and parts of the tree and the lizard. Since I could see the bird figure really well, I was satisfied and glad I got to see a part of the Nasca Lines. Although the area is protected and exploration by foot is prohibited (also due to possible landmines), the Panamericana runs right through the tail of the lizard figure.

The other site that I visited was the Chauchilla Cemetery, located in the desert, 30 km south of Nasca. Dating back to the Nasca culture around 1000 AD, the cemetery contains ancient bones, skulls, and mummies, recently rearranged into a dozen tombs by archeologists, as they had previously been scattered across the desert by huaqueros [grave robbers]. The mummies are surprisingly well-preserved, thanks to the regions dry climate. Even hair had been preserved! The desert view was also spectacular.

The guide later took us to a pottery-making enclave where we had a little presentation about the making of Nasca pottery. Nasca ceramics are quite distinctive from the ceramics of other cultures; replicas continue to be made and sold today. The presentation was held by the grandson of the man who allegedly, after decades of hard work, discovered the technique that the Nascans used to make the pottery. The technique has remained in the family and they continue to make the pots.

I also visited the Gold Museum, which was not much of a museum but it was also the location where gold was processed in big quantities, so that was interesting.

After my little Nasca adventure I finally went to Cruz del Sur to pick up my luggage (since they so desperately wanted it in Nasca, I reckoned they might as well keep it for a few hours longer). Then I took the Soyuz bus back to Ica (I did the same 2-hour route three times in the same day!). From Ica I caught a taxi to

My next stop: Huacachina.

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Spanish Word of the Day: haquero = grave robber

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