The Nazca Lines

Class, you disappoint me.  Not a single one of you has admonished me for calling a flock of Pelicans a flock of Penguins in an earlier post.   I would hate to think you are not paying attention.  More likely, you are probably too polite to point out the obvious, so you are forgiven.

I promised to tell you about the copious cuisine we are being treated to on board the Explorer, but first a word about yesterday.  After tendering on sturdy boats to the lively port of Paracas, we boarded buses for a short ride to Pisco airport where we were treated to a fairly rigorous security check (I even had to take my shoes off) and then boarded ten seater-Cessnas for an air cruise to visit the Nazca Lines, a World Heritage site about 400 km south of Lima along the Peruvian coast.  These ancient gleoglyphs were apparently drawn by the Nazca people between the first and sixth centuries AD and only discovered by a pilot from the air in 1939, although they had been studied from the ground for much longer.  A series of lines and shapes are permanently etched into the earth and have not disappeared in two thousand years. There are two sets of shapes: geometric shapes such as spirals, rectangles and triangles, and natural figures, such as animals, insects and birds.  Some of the figures are up to 300 meters long with perfectly straight lines and proportions.  No one knows the meaning of the figures.  Were they ritualistic? Water related? Part of an astronomical calendar?  Some have even proposed that they indicate that the ancients believed they had been visited by aliens from outer space.  But they are clearly yet another example of the ingenuity and cleverness of these ancient people.  The tail of the hummingbird points exactly to true North. 

A window seat for each person on the hour and 45 minute flight.

If you can enlarge this picture you will see etched into the ground a large hummingbird with wings, tail and long beak pointing to true North.  This whole area is barren, arid, mountainous and bleak.  During our flights we did see agricultural ranches or farms with green crops.  With practically no rainfall in Peru (we were told it rains for a half hour a year, but this may be an exaggeration), the irrigation comes from well water which is becoming more and more scarce with each passing year.

In the center front of the picture is the spider, I think!