Peru, Day 5: Those Mysterious Nasca Lines

You can also spell Nasca with a zed (zee). Nazca. Your choice!

After the cemetery, Oscar took us to the airfield where at least half a dozen different airlines offer flights above the Nasca Lines. You can arrange flights from your Nasca hotel, however this being our first trip to South America and taking into account the previously mentioned not knowing any Spanish, we did everything through pre-arranged tours. Now I think we would feel comfortable enough to tackle certain areas on our own. However, Peru is such a vast country and there are plenty of areas where it’s difficult or not advised to travel unless you are with a tour. Or it’s just impossible…unless you’re super rich. The way I looked at it, the Peruvian people work hard to make foreigners feel welcome in their amazing country. If they can make some money off me by luring me in with glossy websites instead of encouraging me to rent a car and drive myself around, why shouldn’t they?

One thing we learned taking tours is that tour guides know their stuff! They fill you up with so much information sometimes it feels like your brain’s gonna blow up. But at least you never have to look at something and wonder, “What’s that for?” With a guide, all you have to do is ask. And I doubt you have to worry about being chased through the streets in Tangiers, Morocco, if you have a guide. But that’s a story for another time…

I don’t have many pictures of the Nasca Lines because I’d heard the best way to experience the lines is NOT to spend your time taking pictures that won’t turn out, anyway. Instead, enjoy (yeah, right!) the flight and buy postcards. So that’s what we did. My Liege doesn’t get motion sickness, so he didn’t spend a portion of the flight with his head between his legs. I wasn’t being wimpy! I WANTED to see the lines. At one time, however, with our pilots eager to make sure EVERYONE IN THE ENTIRE FREAKING PLANE (all four of us, as we were paired with another couple…or maybe it was two singles) got to see every example of the Nasca Lines, swooped us about so crazy-like that the G-force crammed my head down (“Check out the Monkey on the right.” Swooop. “Now, for those on the left!” Swwoooooooooooop!). I popped it up again as soon as I could.

I did manage to snap a photo of The Astronaut:

He’s on a hillside, and is actually the crudest (as in not as artistic) of the drawings we saw. Can’t see him well enough? Here’s a close-up:

The lines are created by removing the dark rocks filled with iron oxide. The light color underneath is the sand. Why doesn’t the wind sweep the sand and lines away? Because the hot air creates a kind of protective barrier for a few inches above the earth, preserving the Nasca lines for all posterity.

Other designs include a spider and monkey, a whale and lots of good stuff.  The crazy thing is they’re designed to be viewed from the air—at a time when there were no aircraft. Cue Twilight Zone music. There’s a little photo gallery on this website, if you’re interested in seeing more of the designs (note: that wasn’t the tour company we used).

Why create these lines in the desert? There are a lot of theories, but no one really knows. Were they ceremonial, something to do with agriculture, or were they drawn to entice aliens to visit? Were some of them landing strips for alien spacecraft? I dunno, but tons of these (see below) shapes and lines are all over the place:

My Liege likes the aliens theory. I like to bop him upside the head.

What do you think?