Nazca Lines

 Nazca is located 2.5 hours by car away from where we were staying in the dessert. So we hired a private car to drive us south to Nazca. As I mentioned in a previous post we stopped at a ceramic shop and then we went to Nazca airport. The airport is a very busy place. Our driver told us they charge 8 sol for 5 minutes to park in the airport. There were a dozen airlines that fly tiny planes over the Nazca Lines. The airport adn the little company run EFFICIENTLY. You go in, they weigh you, they say sit for 25 minutes. 25 minutes later they come adn get you adn put you on a plane. You fly for 40 minutes over the lines, debark, and are hustled off the airport grounds. It is a very slick, well-oiled machine. The flight was something else. The plane was tiny. I had a brief thought (again) about all the different forms of transportation I have placed my children on this trip...adn this tiny plane seemed like maybe the worst idea so far... Both boys had a little gravel cocktail before the flight, so they were a bit dozy, but at least no one threw up in the air( I neglected to mention we had to stop the car on the way to Nazca so the kiddos could vomit a little from the motion of the car; these boys have delicate stomachs). The flight was shaky even (especially?) for me. There is a lot of tilting and twirling in that small craft. The lines are quite incredible. They are clear and obviously made with purpose. Aside from the famous drawings (monkey, whale, astronaut, etc) there are tons of other lines that are also manmade that criss-cross throughout the dessert. So many. I think that was what was most shocking to me to see. I won't post any pictures of the Nazca lines here because 1.) we forgot our camera, or rather to put the recharged battery back into the camera, and 2.) I am sure you can find clearer images somewhere in the Internet. The purpose of the lines is still unknown..the latest speculation is that they were open-air temples... Over lunch with our guide, he mentioned that the people always knew that the Nazca had done drawings in the dessert, but no one ever knew where they were. It was not until commercial flights starting flying over the dessert that the lines were discovered. They are impossible to see from the ground.

       

This is the "plane" we flew in over the Nazca lines

Self explanatory

Notice how James is almost the same width as the plane...

We got the whole thing w the GoPro. But let's be serious-that video will never upload here!

Here's a picture of the ground from the plane. No figure as such in the pic, but it is SURPRISING how many lines are on the ground all over the place.