Today, we continued the excursion portion of our trip to Peru. From our hotel in Ica, we had to travel about two and a half hours by bus to get to the Nazca lines. During the bus ride, we got to see some different areas of Peru, such as beautiful mountains and small houses in the flatter "desert" areas. These areas are a lot warmer than Lima during this time of year, so we were all excited to see the sun!
The first place we stopped was at the figure of "The Loom". We had to climb a couple of hundred stairs to a platform on a nearby hill to see the whole image. I learned that there were two techniques that the Nazcas used to make the lines and figures: one was by using a tool like a big pencil to dig into the ground and move the rocks aside, which made lines about 3 or 4 centimeters deep; the other method was by moving the stones around. Everyone took lots of pictures from the platform.
After this, we went to the museum of Maria Reiche, an archaeologist from Germany who fell in love with the Nazca lines and dedicated her life to researching them. She was born in 1903, and died in her little house near the lines in 1989. We got to see where she lived and did her research, and also got to see Nazca pottery and art. One thing that surprised us all was the display of a real mummified Incan lady!
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| Photo of Maria Reiche |
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| Visiting Maria Reiche's grave
The other (and last) lines that we saw were "The Hands" and "The Tree". An interesting fact that everyone seemed to love was that the "The Hands" had nine fingers, and Maria Reiche also had nine fingers! I was honestly a little bit surprised that we didn't have to climb very high to see the Nazca lines, until I learned that all the lines really vary in size. Opposite the hands and the tree was "The Crocodile", but it was so big that we couldn't even make out the tail! Seeing the Nazca lines was a really cool experience that all of us (especially Mr. Hoyle!) enjoyed a lot, and definitely won't forget anytime soon!
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| Mr. Hoyle fulfills his life-long dream of visiting the Nazca lines! |
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