It is the start of Holy Week, Semana Santa, and all of Lima’s are flocking to the local churches for the traditional Procesion de las Palmas or palm procession. Women and children sell crosses and wreaths of intricately woven palm leaves. Holy Week is a big deal here. The mood is celebratory, and families stop to chat on the streets as the make the pilgrimage from church to church.
We were supposed to take the cheap local bus to Nasca this afternoon, however, due to the massive numbers of people traveling during Holy Week, there aren’t tickets available, so we end up on the nicer coach bus. We wind through dust sand and desolation. The journey south along the coast takes us through villages of one-room huts set among endless rolling hills of sand dunes. Cheap ocean views.
We arrive at our accomdations in Nazca just before sunset. The Hotel San Marcelo is a simple hotel set among farmlands just outside Nazca. That night I fall asleep to the sounds of foreign crickets.
The next morning I am awakened by roosters calling even before the first rays of sunlight. It’s going to be a hot day- the sun is much stronger here than in Lima- no clouds or smog to diffuse it.
We wind down dusty back roads in an old bus that lurches and moans as we crawl up even a small incline. There is no wind and the smell of dust and exhaust surrounds us. We are miles from anything, and the landscape is nothing but dry, brown dirt as far as one can see. We are on our way to visit the Cemeterio Chauchilla, a pre-Inca cemetary dating back to AD 1000-1400. These graves were robbed centuries ago, but the bones of this land’s original inhabitants still remain in thousands of graves. There are 12 graves which have been reconstructed for viewing- completely open to the elements other than a simple roof to protect from sun and the few drops of rain that fall only once every few years. How did people ever survive here? How do they still?
Next we visit a local pottery shop– Jenny. The owner makes polychrome clay pots using the same techniques and decoration styles used for over 1000 years.
The final sight to see in Nazca- the famous Nazca lines. I have wanted to see the Nazca lines for years. I’ve always had a strong interest in Archeology and the Nazca lines are perplexing. Large geogliphs, they can only be seen from the air. There are figures of birds, fish, monkey, a spider and even what appears to be a space alien. There are many theories about their significance- perhaps they were used by the farmers to know and control the meteorological agrarian cycles, or maybe they had religious significance. Whatever their function, today they are a major tourist attraction. No less than 6 small airline companies have services in the Nazca airport.
The flight over the lines is nauseating. The ultralight plane zig-zags across the sky bouncing up and down on hot air pockets while purposely dipping side to side so that the 6 tourists on the plane can see out the windows. The entire flight lasts just 30 minutes. Half-way through I am so ill I cannot even look out the window- I breath slowly in and out and point my camera out the window hoping to at least capture a few of the designs I was unable to see.
I stumble out of the plane to a nearby bench. Two of the other passengers head directly for the trash bin. The pilot and co-pilot seem to be laughing- they make this flight multiple times each day. Surely they are used to sick tourists. Perhaps they should ask for tips before the flight.
