THE NAZCA LINES

THE NAZCA LINES

NOTE:

Sean and I are at an Internet café in Cuzco right now, composing the THREE glorious entries for you all to read. :) He will be on duty for the, er, colorful bus trip we took to get here, while I am writing about yesterday´s adventures and our first BLOG CONTEST!

Yesterday we left Lima at 4:30am for the six hour bus trip to Nazca to see the famous Nazca lines. It was, in my opinion, one of the single coolest things I have ever seen ... EVER. I have read about the Lines for years and have always wanted the honor of seeing them in person -- it was quite the adventure!!

The basic premise is that between 200BC and 700AD the Nazca people created a series of lines and symbols (called geoglyphs) in the arid Nazca Desert plains. There are some shapes but most of the geoglyphs are of animals. They created them simply by brushing away a few inches of the top layer of sand to reveal a lighter color sand beneath. No one knows why they constructed them, especially since they can only be viewed from the air. It´s a total mystery, and some people think it proves the existence of aliens and UFO´s. They are gigantic and some are really elaborate. There is no wind and hardly any rain in this desert and the lines have survived for 2000 or so years in excellent condition!

The big thing to do is shell out fifty bucks to go up in a four- or six-seater Cessna for a half hour flight over the lines. That is what Sean and I did yesterday!!! The flight was surprisingly not scary, but the constant banking from side to side for people on both sides of the plane to see the lines, along with the air pressure changes as we went up and down, made me start to feel queasy. As the flight continued my quest for the lines became two-fold: to experience the lines and to hold down the sweet beckon of a vom session right there in the plane. Luckily we made it back down OK, without me having vomited all over the place. Sean and I did like that the barf bags supplied by the airline company had a map of the lines on one side of them, and an ad for a hotel/restaurant on the other. We were going to snag one on our way out, but, ironically, thinking directly about vomit would have made me have to use the bag we had just snatched. So no barf bag souvenir. :(

Below are our pictures of the lines. It was the most incredible experience to look down at these lines and see them in person. I have wanted to see these things for YEARS, and I always talk about them in the classroom. Words cannot describe how it felt to see them, and contemplate the people who spent so much time making something they would never be able to see and appreicate like we can today.

Enjoy the pics! I only picked the best, but some are still difficult to make out, just because of the angle of the shot, the light, etc., but do your best!!!

CLICK TO ENLARGE PICTURES OF THE LINES -- THEY ARE MUCH MUCH EASIER TO SEE WHEN YOU CLICK TO ENLARGE THEM. :)

On the dusty, barren road to Nazca.

Waiting for our flight at the airport (basically nothing
more than an airstrip outside of town.)

Preparing to thumb our noses
at God.

Here we go!

Take off!!

Flying over farmland and then desert to get to the lines.

THE LINES:

The whale.

Lines ending in large trapezoidal shape.

Perhaps the most famous of all the geoglyphs. The astronaut. He is on the hillside - a very simple humanoid figure with big eyes and his hand waving.

Two pictures of the condor.

The Monkey!

Spirals and shapes and shit.

Three pictures of the hummingbird.

Viewing platform. All geoglyphs are on the right side. At the top are hands, then a tree, and then the lizard. The PanAmerican highway cuts right through the tail of the lizard. Neat.

Spiral.

AQUEDUCTS of NAZCA

6/14/08 - After the lines, we went to the site of today´s WELCH's BLOG CONTEST, and then afterwards went to see the aqueducts. The Nazca people did not have a reliable source of fresh water, so they constructed underground aqueducts that brought water from the Andes - which are many, many miles away. Our taxi driver acted as tour guide and explained that the tunnels had to be routinely cleaned, so the Nazca build access points along the way. Groups of workers descend these holes in the tunnels with tools to scrape and clean the rocks and come up at the next access hole down the way. The Nazca built spirals that led down to these access holes. They are the cones of Nazca. The amazing thing is that they are STILL USED TODAY to supply water to the people of this town. They are still cleaned annually in much the same way as before. In these pictures you can see our guide showing me the access point, held in place by a 1000 year old tree trunk, along with the point where the aqueduct comes out from its tunnel and flows freely in a canal that leads to the city. This area is now a park, and is of course protected because it is the city´s water source. Butting up to the property was a beautiful farm with workers in traditional Peruvian garb. It was a truly amazing experience to visit this place! Enjoy the pics. - Mr. Welch