Nazca

One site in Peru that I was excited to see was the Nazca lines, geoglyphs from 500BC to 500AD that you had to take to the sky to see. The geoglyphs were made by removing the top red layer of rock, revealing a yellow layer of rick below. There are hundreds of lines, many are straight lines or simple patters, and around 70 are animal designs often made from one single line.

I headed up in a tiny 8 seater propeller plane that is notorious for making people motion sick as it twists and turns in the sky to give everyone a chance to see the lines. It was a little scary, but once we were up it was amazing, you quickly get distracted by the huge patterns and the beautiful landscape. Some the patterns included a spider, whale, hummingbird, lizard, flamingo, condor, monkey, tree, and what they call the "astronaut". It was a fascinating experience, but i was glad to be back on solid ground.

With a few hours to kill before I needed to catch my bus, I went to see Cahuachi Pyramids and the Cementerio de Chauchilla, both from the Nazca culture around 1-900 AD. The extremely dry climate means that the mummies in the cemetery are very well preserved, with the remains of bone, hair and even skin being seen. Before they were protected, many of the tombs were broken open by grave robbers to steal the archeological items for sale, which is why they can be viewed now. There are many more that are undiscovered. It was a very eerie site, but very interesting.Lue lisää