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Sunday, 05.05.2002: Puerto Inca - Nasca
We left at 9am and drove for 3 hours through desert scenery, still on the Panamericana, to Nazca. On the way we stopped at the Chauchilla cemetery to see the ancient burial chambers with scattered human bones. But to our disappointment it was closed due to renovations.
We arrived at our campsite in Nasca at 11-45am, had lunch and enjoyed the swimming pool afterwards. At 3pm we all went to the little airport to go on an extremely bumpy flight over the Nazca lines, which were very difficult to make out, and poor old Melva missed everything as she was being sick in the back of the little plane where it was extremely hot!!! She paid 50 US dollars to be sick!!
Flying over the Nasca lines
The Nazca Lines are a series of ancient geoglyphs located in the Nazca Desert in southern Peru. They were designated a UNESCO World
Heritage Site in 1994. The high, arid plateau stretches more than 80 kilometres (50 mi) between the towns of Nazca and Palpa on the
Pampas de Jumana about 400 km south of Lima. Although some local geoglyphs resemble Paracas motifs, scholars believe the Nazca Lines
were created by the Nazca culture between 400 and 650 CE.
The lines are shallow designs made in the ground by removing the ubiquitous reddish pebbles and uncovering the whitish ground beneath.
Hundreds are simple lines or geometric shapes; more than seventy are designs of animal, bird, fish or human figures. The largest
figures are over 200 metres (660 ft) across. Scholars differ in interpreting the purpose of the designs, but they generally ascribe
religious significance to them.
The geometric ones could indicate the flow of water or be connected to rituals to summon water. The spiders, birds, and plants could be
fertility symbols. Other possible explanations include: irrigation schemes or giant astronomical calendars.
That evening we went to a planetarium, which was in a dome shaped building. It had the same effect as in St. Pauls Cathedral so that you can hear the person sitting opposite as if they´re talking into a microphone. The first part of the talk was disturbed by Graham banging on the door as he´d gone to the loo and got locked out!! We were all killing ourselves laughing until, eventually, Prue got up and let him in. Definitely Dick of the Day (again!).
We got to see Alpha Centauri (the closest star) and Jupiter and 4 of its moons through a telescope. Pretty impressive!! The guide also told us that tomorrow night we would be able to see Jupiter, Saturn, Venus, Mars and Mercury all in one line. This only happens every 40 years!! (We did manage to see them 3 nights later but they weren´t exactly in a straight line!)
