Reaching great heights and ancient burial sites: Nazca

I’m not quite feeling myself at the moment, Jarrod. It’s been a flat chat couple of weeks and I think you’ll agree from the selfie below, the strain is beginning to show. (Possibly just my opinion, but I think I’m looking a little dehydrated around the delicate eye area)

The beginnings of some crow’s feet and a little dryness in the T Zone

I’m a little more behind on the blog than I would like to be, so this week it’s a very belated buenos dias from Nazca in Peru.

I decide to take up the option of seeing a couple of the main attractions here: the first being a flight to see the Nazca lines. For those of you not nodding sagely/obnoxiously and saying “ahhh, yes, the infamous Nazca lines, know them well…” here’s some brief background for you. They’re a series of huge geoglyphs (hundreds of metres long), carved into the ground by the Nazca people, sometime between 500BC and 500AD. Only visible from the sky, they are patterns and pictures depicting various shapes, birds, insects and animals. Like crop circles, I guess, only far more elaborate and far less likely to be the work of a pissed college student on his dad’s tractor.

We arrive at the airport, which looks more or less like this. (“Ms Mckay, today you’ll be boarding via Gate One and Bloody Only”)

On a positive note, not much chance of forgetting where you parked.

I can literally imagine your face at this point, Jarrod, as well as the speed at which you would skid the car 180 degrees to drive back home. Undeterred by the ambulance parked right outside the tarmac, we head inside to buy our tickets for the flight. They’re US $95 per person and all the signage at the counter indicates credit cards accepted. Our little group of 12 has 8 people wanting to take up that option and the staff aren’t terribly happy about that. The sign ought to actually read “credit card accepted, with much eye rolling, muttering and tutting.”

Having finally sorted out payment, we’re lead over to the check in counter where we have to be weighed one by one. I’m told this is so that they can work out seating to balance the small aircraft best. Maybe. Or maybe they just do it for laughs, hoping that one of us will have a Biggest Loser style breakdown in the airport lounge and declare that “seeing these numbers is a big reality check for me.” At which point a tattooed bogan would appear from nowhere and start yelling orders at us until we burst into tears again mid push-up.

After about an hour and a half wait (high winds) we’re cleared to fly and head out onto the tarmac to board. Our plane is a little 12 seater with propellor, the sort of plane that looks like a child’s toy that needs the propellor manually tensioned in order to take off.

Cranking her up.

We’re instructed to board, ahem, obviously in order of pilot favourites because I am in the front seat. Everyone is in high spirits, I mean look at us all, bright eyed and bushy tailed…

Ready for take off

and then we notice this:

Not. Inspiring. Confidence.

Is that the pilot reading an instruction manual??? I squint but I can’t quite make out what’s written on the pages. I choose to believe instead that it’s his little book of affirmations. (“You can do it!” “Believe, receive, achieve!” “You are a safe and competent pilot.”)

It obviously is his affirmation book because we take off without a hitch and moments later we’re looking down at this beautiful view.

Arid land from up above

If there was one thing I hadn’t banked on, it was that you have to differentiate the Nazca lines from all those other squiggles on the ground. (Call me a fool but I’d expected Mother Nature to provide a blank canvas so that the images would stand out clearly). The pilots make two sweeps over each formation, one so that those on the left of the plane can see it, and one for those on the right. They shout what we should be seeing and I must look uncertain at times because that note of enthusiasm combined with impatience begins to creep in, like it does when someone’s trying to get you to see one of those Magic Eye pictures and can’t for the life of them understand WHY YOU CAN’T SEE IT. Much like I do in Magic Eye instances, I relax my eyes as instructed, and just lie through my teeth (YES! There it is, of course…) But I DID see these ones-

The Sperm Whale. Now that’s what I call well and truly beached. (I am SO sorry)

The Monkey

The Hummingbird

You know what they say about giant hands. They’re best viewed from hundreds of metres up.

Back on terra firma, we head to the next attraction: The Chauchilla Cemetery.

At the entrance looking out towards the grave sites in the distance

This fascinating (and slightly macabre) place was discovered in the 1920’s and houses the graves and remains of many mummified humans from as early as 200AD. Unlike Egyptian mummies, they’re not wrapped in bandages, rather they sit exposed a mere 3 or 4 metres from you. They sit in the foetal position as this was believed optimal for one’s journey to the afterlife. They’re also always oriented facing east, because apparently when you’re dead your days of watching sexy sunsets are OVER.

Thanks for dropping by, I’d invite you in but I haven’t got a scrap of food in the place…

How did they achieve mummification? Well I’m glad you asked. They dried the bodies out completely in the sun to dehydrate them. A technique that would later be adopted by horrible antipasto manufacturers to create the dreaded mainstay of 1990’s cooking: the sun dried tomato. The bodies were preserved with local leaves and salt, and wrapped in cotton before being put in the funeral bundle and buried. As you can see, the preservation to this day is incredible.

Impressive, and also the stuff of nightmares.

Baby Mummy

I have about another six or seven mummy photos that I will eventually upload but I’m dealing with wifi that is so exasperatingly slow I run the very real risk of becoming mummified at my keyboard only to be discovered tomorrow morning when the tour group come down for breakfast. So for now, as always I will throw the question over to you: Nazcar Lines and the Chauchilla Cemetery–Jarrod, would you go there?