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Published: April 25th 2006
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ge-loppy collectivo!
striaght out of the mid sixties - we arrived at the Collectivo - where the driver Jesus in this case gets a car full of paying passengers before setting off to Nazca! Since this ol'Dodge can hold 4 adults in the back and 3 in the bench seat infront including the Jesus...Sevens a lucky number very comfy ride in the end bonus that it took only 2 hours to arrive at our destination... (Sean guest writing...) Easter Saturday and we were both half-dead, the OC partying in Huacachina having gone on til dawn.
We put ourselves in the hands of Jesus (that being the name of our collectivo taxi driver across the desert) and made it to Nazca. The collectivo was an ancient Ford with four other passengers and a smelly dog, and Esther had to spend the whole ride sat on my lap. The passengers were good enough to point out a rock foundation called the Inca´s Face along the road... and we got there in good time, if rather sore.
Nazca is forever emblazoned in the collective imagination by Erich von Daniken´s Chariots of the Gods, his 70s ´Was God an Astronaut?´ classic in which he proposed these mysterious lines etched into the desert outside of town were ancient alien landing strips. They also featured prominently in Arthur C Clarke´s Mysterious World, you know the one with the scary crystal skull at the start. Not to mention Jack Kirby´s Eternals, 70s Marvel comics fans. The big deal being that both lines and the various etchings would have been invisible from the ground to anyone without the power of flight.
What nobody knew
the face of ICA (profile)
this you can see from the Pan-American highway Jesus was nice enough to pull over for the photo op back then was that tribal shamans had the power of flight (or thought they did anyway) after ingesting certain substances, so the lines were directional symbols to them, as well as invocations to various gods. The effort to draw the lines can also be thought of as a good long term investment, as today the entire three-road town´s economy is pretty much built around them, with mucho tours and merchandise. So it is a shame that long-distance lorry drivers are apparently taking short-cuts along the Lines sometimes, basically erasing them. And recent El Nino flood events have endangered parts of them as well. With global warming into the bargain, it´s another case of see them while you can!
We were on a package deal which included hotel and air flight in the morning - and even TV! - so because Esther had a dodgy stomach we had a telly evening, watching a Richard Branson reality show with a hysterical American going crazy on a parabolic flight. Only the signal being lost as the evening wind shook the receiving dish reminded us we were in the Peruvian desert. Since Esther was poorly I read her the first chapter of the Time
Machine from my Ipod.
Easter Sunday we were due to make our own heavenly ascent with Aeroparacas. We got a minibus to Nazca´s small airport in plenty of time, and waited for our flight in a waiting area with DVDs in Spanish and English on the Lines. We finally went up in a small little Cessna, six of us altogether including the pilot. The idea was to make sure everyone saw the pictograms clearly and so we made a lot of sharp turns left and right in our little half-hour flight. I knew Esther was feeling a little ill when she gave me the camera to take photos, which never normally happens.
A lot of the pictograms were faint to see, and it was difficult to get a sense of scale when out of sight of the Pan-American highway, the first one you see is dubbed the ´astronaut´ - probably at the behest of the tourist board - but is really supposed to be a half-man half-owl. A smooth touch-down then we were on the way to see the remains of the people who drew the lines, in the Chaucila cemetary, with bleached bones or complete mummies sitting in excavated
rectangular tombs. Their long dark hair has been preserved as well. Important people from far inland were buried here because of the preservative properties of the climate and soil. They were cleaned out, pulled into a foetal position, insulated in multiple layers of blankets and left facing the dawn. Whole families were buried together and the tomb was buried under the desert, with just a little coloured reed to mark their position so other family members could be added in good time.
A couple of folks (I think German) were especially fascinated by this, and kept saying ´yeah!´ in a really excited way as the guide explained the scene. They also asked how Peruvians are buried these days, and seemed very disappointed when they heard that the current fashion is for consecrated ground and coffins.
The tombs were discovered in 1895 during drought-driven drilling for water. Many have been disturbed by grave robbers, but there could be many more out there. Reminded me somehow of ´duck and cover´ nuclear bomb shelters - had the same basic design.
We were then taken to a couple of craft shops - one with new pottery created in ancient Nazca style (including using the
in flight...
this was like a spinning on a carnival ride - cause the pilot would go round oneside then on the other - I was a bit green but not sick! hair from new-born babies for brushes!) and the other with a retired miner singing the Beatles in between explaining how local miners use mercury to extract gold from mines in the vicinity. Also, in the way back to town we saw the world´s largest sand dune, towering over neighbouring hills of parched stone.
It would have been nice to pay a visit to (although we had already found out that climbing sand dunes can be hard work) but we were going on our overnight ´Royal Class´ bus to Arequiba. Except the bus was two and a half hours late leaving Lima, and we waited there by the side of the Pan-American until one, looking on with bored horror as giant cockroachs scurried under items of luggage in the waiting room (not ours, I think). Ah the glamour of foreign travel. But finally the Royal Class bus with reclining seats arrived, and even though one our seats was double-booked the attendant found us better seats down below, and we roared away into the dry night...
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