Nazca Lines: Parrot in Southern Peru
On 25 March 2007 when my cruise ship Golden Princess docked in San Martin, south of Lima, Peru, I took a USD 309-per person, 7-hour group shore excursion which included an overflight of southern Peru’s world-famous Nazca Lines.
Our chartered single-engine Aero Condor Grand Caravan propeller-driven aircraft flew south to the Nazca Lines from the commercial airport at Ica, Peru. Ica is situated some 50 miles (80 km) from the port of San Martin. Although the total round trip flight required about 80 minutes, most of that time was necessary in order to travel back and forth from Ica.
Over Nazca itself I found it very difficult to take either still photos or video clips due to the pilot’s continuous extreme aerial maneuvering and my lack of familiarity with the placement of the images on the plain itself. Also, unusually, my stomach became a bit upset due to the pilot’s excessive banking. Luckily, however, I did not actually have to make use of the flight sickness bags which were available on the plane.
While I am glad I took the tour, I now wish that I had concentrated simply on viewing the Nazca Lines rather than on trying to photograph them from the continuously-banking aircraft. For the record, my group tour also included a visit to the regional archeological museum at Ica, which features artifacts and mummies from the Paracas, Nazca and Ica cultures.
This video clip shows one of about a dozen images I spotted from the plane. In addition to some 900 geoglyphs (trapezoids, circles, spirals, triangles, straight lines, etc.), the Nazca Plain is said to contain about 70 biomorphs (images of animals and birds). Not only is one of the images 1,000 feet (300 meters) long, but one of the straight lines is 9 miles (14.5 km) long!
For more information on Nazca, refer to www.unmuseum.org/nazca.htm
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