Flying Between the Lines

I learned about the Nasca lines, sweeping geoglyphs created by the Nasca people (or, better said, "pre-Inca" as the name Nasca was given them by the Inca, and the "s" later changed to a "z" by the Spaniards), in college. So, when I found myself with an awkward weekend between teams in Panama and Peru (arriving tonight), I planned a quick, 450 km. trip south. 

Means of transportation: double decker coach bus, departing from Lima Sunday morning. 

If only the WiFi had worked, I would have been living the high life. 

Approaching Nasca, we passed one way to see the lines - a viewing tower. I didn't come all that way to climb no stinkin' tower, though!

I checked into my Airbnb, run by elderly couple David & Jesús, then set out on foot in search of dinner, with a stop in the Plaza de Armas. 

Thanks to my hosts for recommending a place where it seemed more locals eat than tourists. I was too hungry to take a picture before I devoured my plate of pollo a la brasa a lo pobre (rotisserie chicken with salad, French fries, rice, fried egg, and plantain), so here's what was left ;) Two thumbs up. 

The cutest breakfast spread. I had to eat and be ready to go by the 9 am pickup time for my Nasca lines flyover. 

Cessnas, as in those I've flown between San Juan, and Mayaguez, PR, have twice as many seats as this guy, no doubt the smallest aircraft I've ever been in. I'm not a Star Wars fan, but note the tail. 

Five passengers, plus the pilot and copilot/guide, left just one empty seat next to me in the very back. 

I won't bore you with an endless string of sandy, brown "seek-and-finds." The blue map is a diagram of our flight path, and the remaining images, a sampling of the nearly 2000 yr. old figures etched into the desert as viewed from above. Following are two more that shed light on points later in this post. 

Remember that viewing tower? Unfortunately, the Pan-American Highway (which, interestingly, runs 30,000 km. from Alaska to Argentina) bisects the lizard in the lower portion of the photo, since the highway was paved prior to the discovery of the lines. 

The still operational Cantalloc Aqueducts (beneath the wing tip in the photo) are the reason civilization was able to take root in a valley in the middle of a desert. 

No motion sickness back here!

I would have come to Nasca for the flyover alone, but there's more to the area than just the lines. Unexpectedly back at my Airbnb before 11 am, I called David & Jesús's go-to taxista, who passed me off to a tour guide buddy of his. We picked up a Spanish couple and set off for the aforementioned aqueducts. There's always water in the ancient, subterranean channel, no matter the time of year. This marvel of engineering, having admittedly been restored on the outside but not internally, has proven surprisingly earthquake-resistant. 

The spirals (c.f. the aerial photo) are merely access points for ensuring the cleanliness and functionality of the viaduct and would have also been used for religious ceremonies, with the shaman at the center (lowest) point.  

I was just along for the ride on stop #2: the Chauchilla Cemetery with its astoundingly well-preserved Nasca mummies. 

Mummification was evidently practiced amongst all strata of society, so Chauchilla is more or less your average neighborhood burial plot. The graves here were looted of anything with value (jewelry, pottery, textiles, etc.) before the site was memorialized by the Ministry of Culture. 

We dropped the Spanish couple off before hitting the 2nd place I was itching to see: the Museo Maria Reiche. Maria was a German mathematician (among other things), who first came to Peru at age 29. Once she learned of the lines, she spent the remainder of her life researching them and fighting to preserve them, as a lone ranger in the beginning. She died a Peruvian citizen in 1998 and is a national hero. The museum is small and out of the way, but I'm glad I went. Maybe, as a fellow single woman who became an expat just a few years later than her, I felt a certain kinship with her independence and fierce dedication to her cause. 

Maria's remains were transported to Nasca so she could be buried among her beloved lines. 

On the way back into town, we paused by the roadside to see the lizard's tail up close. Most of the lines are mere centimeters deep and maybe 12-18 in. wide. 

The Ica region in which Nasca is located is known for growing some of the best wine grapes in all Peru. While not what I'd typically go for, this semi-dry rosé was not a bad choice.

Depictions of the lines are EVERYWHERE in Nasca and, more generally, nationwide (case in point: the hummingbird, pictured above, is on two of the office keys in the set I'll be using all week). 

My final, spontaneous stop in Nasca was the aptly named Maria Reiche Planetarium, located on the patio of a hotel where Maria lived for the last 25 years of her life in this room (no, it's not up for grabs). The English show, outlining some of Maria's theories of the lines as charts of the night sky, was at 7:30 pm and lasted maybe 30-40 min.; unfortunately, it was too cloudy to see any actual stars afterward. 

People fascinate me. The who, what, when, and where of the lines are more or less known, but it's the how and the why that keeps tourists coming - and theorizing - in droves. Was Maria right about their link to astronomy (or astrology)? Were they used in religious or water rituals (almost certainly yes)? Are they family crests? Did aliens draw them? None of the above? All of the above? Who knows? Maybe we never will, and I'm OK with the mystery. 

I had a momentary freakout when it appeared the bus station was closed at 4:30 am Tuesday morning, but it turns out I was the only passenger boarding at such an hour, so they'd just cracked the parking lot gate to wait for me. I dozed on and off in between wrestling with my seatmate's elbow and was in Lima before noon. Now back to work! 

Until next time, blessings in Christ!