Nasca & Huacachina - Week 39

9th to 11th June

We spent Saturday exploring more of Arequipa and sorting boring stuff like washing then took the overnight bus to Nasca. Neither of us slept more than half and hour as there was a fat woman in front of us snoring all night so we arrived bleary-eyed in Nasca at 5.30am. There we met a tourist woman and struck a good deal for a flight over the Nasca lines ($45 each for 40mins) so she drove us to her hostel and let us have a sleep for a couple of hours then we were off to see the lines.

Nasca town itself (a bit of a dump truth be told) is set in a valley but the lines are 22km north in the desert. They are thought to have been etched by three different groups: Paracans 900-200BC, Nascas 200BC to AD 600 and Huari settlers AD 630. First of all we watched a very informative video (by the dear old BBC!) of all the different theories behind the lines (alien spaceship runways being our fave but other theories being: a huge astrological calendar and something for the shamen to look at when they were high in the sky on LSD). The Nazca lines can only really be appreciated from the air. It is presumed the Nazca people could never have seen their work from the, and so there has been much speculation on the Nascan's abilities and motivations. The camera went up the spout so these photos are `borrowed´ from google images.

The alien, giving creditabilityl to the spacecraft runway theory

The lines were made by removing the gravel crust that covers the surface of the Nazca desert contrasting with the light-colored earth underneath. There are several hundred simple lines and geometric patterns, with over 70 animal, insect, and human figures. The area encompassing the lines is nearly 200 square miles, and the largest figures are nearly 900 feet long.

The half hour flight was great. It was the tiniest plane we'd ever been in, one other tourist sitting next to the pilot and us two in the back. The pilot conscientiously pointed out every line and shape and circled each one a couple of times so that we all got a good look. There is so much to see out there, an astonaut, a dog, a hummingbird, a whale, a huge monkey etc etc, it was fascinating!

The spider

The hummingbird

The hands

The condor

The dog

The one theory that all the experts seem to have settled on at the moment is that the lines and animals were part of the Nasca people´s religious ceremonies to their gods of the sky. The Nasca people were completely reliant on the the El Nino rains flowing down from the distant Andes as the Nasca Plateau is one of the driest deserts in the world. Saying that there are small natural and manmade aquaducts under the ground providing a small amount of water year round. It is thought that they made lines where they thought these natural aqueducts were under the ground and that they form a huge map of where water could be found on the plateau. The Nascans walked up and down these lines ceremonially to encourage the waters and to reach their temples of worship.

The animals are thought to represent the animals spirits the shamen "used" when "flying" over the Nasca Plateau. If you look at the monkey below you might be able to see that you could walk along the entire length of the line and back out again. It is thought that the Nascans did this too as well as long their long straight lines as part of a ritual to their gods.

The monkey

And that was our trip to Nasca, there didn't seem to be much to hold our attention in the town so we took the next bus at 1.30pm out of there to Ica, 2 hours north. From the bus at Ica, we took a taxi to Huacachina which is a tiny little oasis made up of about 10 hostels, hotels and restaurants around a palm-fringed lake. Very wierd place.

The lake was pretty dirty but all the hostels had pools and the weather was lovely so it was perfect for a bit of sunbathing after nearly two months of cold weather and chapped lips!

Huacachina is well known for it's sandboarding so on Monday afternoon, after a morning of sunbathing and relaxing, we got in a dune buggy and raced off over the enormous sand dunes with our sandboards. It was soooo much fun! The driver was crazy and definitely out to frighten us as much as we could, it was like Alton Towers (Hels you would have loved it!!). And the sandboarding was great. James gave it one go but didn't really 'take' to it so did the rest of the dunes on his stomach which Katie thought looked far more scary! Some of the dunes were enormous but you just had to take a deep breath and go for it. Katie thought she actually looked quite professional at one point but I thing this vid/photo might show differently...!!