Doing a Few Lines

Preparing to view Nasca Lines

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After being out until 1am or so (having successfully lost our guests), we had a relatively early start (sans breakfast).  We were driven to the local airport where waited a few hours for our turn to get in a Cesna and observe the Nasca Lines, a collection of spectacular structures, some measuring more than 200m, constructed by the now extinct Nasca culture.  According to Maria Reiche, a German scientist who worked most of her life discovering and trying to explain the purpose of these mysterious figures and geometric shapes, they were constructed out of the desert sands to appease the Sun god and in some cases, channel water into impressive underground  aquifers. 

Although tough to see (let along photograph), I was able to snap a few pics of these impressive configurations. 

Hummingbird

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Up next was a tour of the Chanchilla Cemetery, a collection of approximately 500 Nascan graves (a few of which have been excavated).  Evidently, grave robbers and earthquakes have devastated many of the sites, areas mainly where the upper class buried their dead with impressive hand-made pottery containing maize, coca etc.  A fascinating area, it has human bones strewn amid the desert sands into which a path at been created to tour several reconstructed grave sites.  At one of these, our excellent guide Louis, dug in the ground and plucked out a human jaw bone of one of these mummies.  Contrasted with the white bones of the mummies replaced in the tombs, the mandible was yellow in colour (unblanched by the desert sun - the area gets a few HOURS of rain each year), it was interesting to note the significantly ground down molars, something attributable to the large amount of coca the Nasca people used to enjoy.