Nazca

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After an overnight bus from Arequipa, we arrived in Nazca to see the famous Nazca lines. The lines are etched into the desert just north of Nazca and form the shape of many things, animals, geometrical figures and other shapes. They apparently were made by three different groups according to our guide book;

1) The Paraca people 900-200 BC
2) The Nazcas 200 BC-AD 600
3) The Huari settlers from Ayacucho AD 630

The lines are best seen from the air so we took a 30min flight in a 7 seat Cesna plane (super cool!) to get an overview of the lines. It is suggested to eat only a very small breakfast before the flight because it is quite rough, and many people get nauseus and/or vomit haha. It turned out they were right! The small plane was something we had never experienced before and it makes many small but suddon drops in elevation making your stomach bounce all over the place! Also, to allow many of the lines to be seen from both the left and right side of the plane, the pilot would make a sharp U-turn to pass by each line a second time. Although it was hard ot tell exactly, the plane seemed to be banked at about a 60 degree tilt causing you to feel some pretty good G-forces. Basically it felt like someone was jamming your head into the rest of your body.....I (Greg) thought it was really cool! Laura on the other hand didn't enjoy those parts of the flight quite as much. She was pretty light-headed through most of it, but was well enough to still enjoy the view, unlike the puker in the seat behind us haha.

The exact origin of the lines is unknown, however many people have provided theories, a few of which I'll list below.

1) they represent a vast pre-Inca astronomical calender
2) they are tracks of running contests
3) they represent weaving patterns and yarns
4) they mark the location of water sources (important because they are located in the desert)

As you can see, the theories are all over the map, and we read some even weirder ones than I've listed. Many people have devoted their entire life to studying the lines and the surrounding area. The title of each photo is the official name of each line (in most cases it is pretty self-explanatory).

This was one of the coolest things we have done so far to be honest. It's just such a mystery how and why the lines are there, very odd. That combined with the flight made for a really cool, albeit short experience.

On to Lima (capital of Peru) next!

Greg and Laura

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Photos

Trapezoids
This was the toughest photo. I don't think we got it all in.

Alcatraz
Another tough one. Didn't quite get it all.