The first thing I did when I arrived in Nazca was arrange my overflight of the famous Nazca lines. The flights are ridiculously expensive for Peruvian standards - easily recognizable because they, like all ridiculously expensive things in Peru, are priced in US dollars. But this couldn't be helped, got to see the lines!
At Nazca airport, a host of tiny planes was waiting for tourists. Apparently, Nazca line overflights are the only flights happening here. This is the four-passenger Cessna 206 I flew in:
My travel guide, and also the lady at my hostel, had warned against eating anything heavy before the flight, so I only had some orange juice. But this didn't help: the bumpy flight in combination with tight curves and trying to spot things on the ground made everything come out again.
Maybe I should strike "learn to fly" off my bucket list - seems my stomach can't handle small planes.
Under these conditions, it wasn't all that easy to fully appreciate what I saw. But anyway, the lines and figures are amazing. This monkey, for example, is 110 meters wide. No chance to see this from the ground!
The hummingbird, 96 meters. Look at how perfectly parallel the lines are:
You can also see how the figures are connected to a pattern of straight lines and rectangles. These actually make up the majority of the lines. The figures are pretty small in comparison.
The lines were apparently not etched into the ground. All their creators had to do was clean away the top layer of dust and stones to reveal a lower layer of lighter ground. The dry desert climate then did the rest to preserve the lines.
To get an idea how big the figures are, these two - a tree and hands - have a highway and cars as a size reference:
In the evening, I visited the Maria Reiche planetarium, named after a German scientist who spent 60 years of her life in Peru investigating the lines. The show tried to shed some light on the purpose of the lines. Some theories are: a giant calendar that indicates solstices and stars, a method to point to water sources in the region, and open-air temples. However, there doesn't seem to exist a consensus. And as the lines were made in a period of more than 1000 years, it may even be possible that the purpose changed over time. I love a good riddle, but knowing that the solution might be forever lost is somewhat frustrating, isn't it?
At Nazca airport, a host of tiny planes was waiting for tourists. Apparently, Nazca line overflights are the only flights happening here. This is the four-passenger Cessna 206 I flew in:
My travel guide, and also the lady at my hostel, had warned against eating anything heavy before the flight, so I only had some orange juice. But this didn't help: the bumpy flight in combination with tight curves and trying to spot things on the ground made everything come out again.
Maybe I should strike "learn to fly" off my bucket list - seems my stomach can't handle small planes.
Under these conditions, it wasn't all that easy to fully appreciate what I saw. But anyway, the lines and figures are amazing. This monkey, for example, is 110 meters wide. No chance to see this from the ground!
The hummingbird, 96 meters. Look at how perfectly parallel the lines are:
You can also see how the figures are connected to a pattern of straight lines and rectangles. These actually make up the majority of the lines. The figures are pretty small in comparison.
The lines were apparently not etched into the ground. All their creators had to do was clean away the top layer of dust and stones to reveal a lower layer of lighter ground. The dry desert climate then did the rest to preserve the lines.
To get an idea how big the figures are, these two - a tree and hands - have a highway and cars as a size reference:
In the evening, I visited the Maria Reiche planetarium, named after a German scientist who spent 60 years of her life in Peru investigating the lines. The show tried to shed some light on the purpose of the lines. Some theories are: a giant calendar that indicates solstices and stars, a method to point to water sources in the region, and open-air temples. However, there doesn't seem to exist a consensus. And as the lines were made in a period of more than 1000 years, it may even be possible that the purpose changed over time. I love a good riddle, but knowing that the solution might be forever lost is somewhat frustrating, isn't it?
