Love Is Mysterious - Nazca Lines
The Nazca Lines, Perú
The propeller of the small plane began to make a deafening noise. We were wearing heavy light green earphones and listened to the two pilots’ voices. They went through the take-off list. A few moments later, we were up in the air. I kept my eyes and ears super-focused. I did not want to miss a second, not an inch of the experience.
We were flying above the Nazca Lines in Perú.
The Nazca Lines are geoglyphs located in the arid Peruvian coastal plain, some 400km south of the capital. These lines depict animals, plants, imaginary creatures and geometric figures, and are impressive in their quantity, elaborate quality, as well as their size. The animal figures can span up to a few hundred meters, and the straight lines cutting the desert are kilometers long. That’s why the best way to see them is them from an airplane.
Covering an area of over 75,000 hectares, this is one of the most important archaeological sites in the world. The Nazca Lines were scratched on the surface of the ground between 500 BC and 500 AD, and the area’s arid climate has preserved them intact for the past approximately 2,000 years.
I’ve wanted to see the Nazca Lines ever since I first read about these geoglyphs. Not only are they unmatched in magnificence by any other similar work in the world, but they are also one of the biggest mysteries in archaeology. There are many theories trying to explain the purpose of these lines - scientists generally ascribe religious meanings to them - but we do not know for certain. As there is no written documentation from the cultures that inhabited the area back then, we will never find out.
Before take-off, our pilots had told us how the flight would work. When we fly over a geoglyph they will point it out to us, and we need to look down a straight line from the tip of the wing. The pilots will make circles so that we both could see the figures equally well, below the right wing as well as the left one.
We were flying above one of the driest areas on the planet. It was extremely hot in the small plane, even if the windows were partly open, and we were sweating profusely. I tried to imagine people at work down on the ground, removing dirt and pebbles, etching and making incisions that expose a different color below the surface. Must have been a heavy and sweaty enterprise.
The hummingbird geoglyph.
The monkey.
A trapezoid triangle.
The mystery: not just why but how?
Before flying in the sky across this vast barren area, I had not been able to imagine the scale and complexity of the Nazca Lines. Now that I saw it all beneath my own eyes, I remained in awe and perplexed. I was not troubled by the mystery regarding the purpose. But what I saw from that little airplane hit me hard with another question: how? Considering technologies available to the peoples populating the area 2,500 - 1,500 years ago, how were they able to create something so huge, precise and elaborate?
We were flying above the famous hummingbird geoglyph. The bird figure’s continuous line begins at the tip of the long beak, makes elaborate curves for the head, wings, feet and the tail feathers - and ends close to the starting point. But the figure is not closed, there is a gap between the two ends of the line. Interesting. If we were down there, we could walk that line, from the start to the end… maybe that’s what the creators of the geoglyphs did? For a religious ritual? For some other motive?
Here, the geoglyphs were cut by the road.
Mysterious like love
Umberto and I took dozens of photos, if not a hundred each. I started cleaning them up on the bus back to Lima, choosing and modifying the best ones. Zooming in on one of the most complex geoglyphs, I had a thought.
The Nazca Lines are like love stories.
Love is mysterious and unpredictable. Even scientists cannot quite tell why we fall in love with a certain person. Each love story has a different form. Some are complex and have lots of steep curves and angles. Some are simple and run on long straight lines, or maybe have a small number of sharp turning points like a triangle. Some feel like a spiral that leads nowhere. No matter what the form of the love story, we cannot see clearly what’s happening when we’re in the middle of it, living it. We need some distance to see the big picture. Sometimes other people see it better, standing on a watchtower or flying across.
Even so, the deepest essence of a love story remains secret, a mystery.
*****
Umbe took this pic secretly as I was concentrated on listening to the pilots. I don’t look happy, that’s only because of the high temperature!
Our Aeronasca pilots did a great job, both flying smoothly and explaining what we saw.
Here are three useful links:
UNESCO World Heritage Convention site for the Nazca Lines:
https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/700/
We took our flight with Aeronasca:
As noted on my previous Peruvian story: we toured Southern Perú with Peru Hop (https://bushop.com/peru/). It’s a great choice for people who do not have a lot of time, yet want to experience a lot.
Most Nazca Lines are created on flat desert floor. This is one of the hillside geoglyphs, a humanoid-looking figure. Maybe an astronaut from two thousand years ago? ;)