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In This Issue...
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Travel
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Lines in the Desert
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Lines in the Desert
A Rambling Visit to Peru’s Prehistoric Geoglyphs
By Bill Eaton
Given the fact that my nickname was Paddington in a previous life, I suppose it was inevitable that I should end up in Peru, home of the original bear. Exiting the baggage hall in Lima I was confronted by a mass demonstration of a shouting, placard-waving mob of some 50-plus people.
Political demonstrations at 11 p.m. were a new phenomenon to me until closer inspection revealed that the placards belonged to travel agencies and bore the names of the clients they had come to collect. Among them was mine, waved by a delightful lass named Claudia who shepherded me into a mini-bus, delivered me a pile of tickets for my various trips and guided me to my hotel in Miraflores, the upscale tourist area of Peru’s capital city.
Enroute Claudia warned me to keep clear of the city center and to stay well aware of pickpockets and muggers. Along the road into town I noticed that almost all houses were burglar barred, and often had electrified fences on the parapet with immediate response notices from private security firms. It was my first indication that I was back in the third world.
Touring Downtown Lima
The following morning I embarked on my tour of Lima. As it is a 500-year-old city and the capital of Spanish Latin America, I expected to see a range of classical Spanish buildings, facilities and wide boulevards. In fact the city was scruffy, uncomfortably warm and humid and only a few rather faded Spanish buildings down narrow alleys.
Tourist buildings are surrounded by hawkers offering Inca souvenirs, fake Rolexes, Coca Cola and chewing gum. Armed police in bullet-proof vests were stationed outside every bank. Many of the alleys bore signs stating “playa” (beach) with a directional arrow. I wondered if Peruvians were desperately keen surfers or swimmers unable to locate the ocean until I discovered that the word also means parking lot! Another early discovery was the term “servicios higiénicos” for rest rooms. This may be charitably described as an optimistic adjective in many cases.
The Presidential Palace was unremarkable except for the gay rights flag flying over it. I later discovered this was, in fact, the old Inca flag.I leave it to your imagination to make the connection. The main classical Spanish building was the cathedral whose highlight was catacombs within which obsessive guardians had neatly arranged all the bones of the residents in batches. Femurs in one pile, pelvis in another and a well where the skulls were neatly stacked, radiating out from the center to the periphery.
After a pleasant evening in a nearby restaurant I boarded the local equivalent of a Greyhound bus. Its clock showed central Baghdad time, the rest rooms lacked water, towels and light and the on-board video was a kung-fu movie of Jackie Chan in London dubbed into Spanish. Traveling through the outskirts of Lima I passed through miles of shanty towns built of scrap, many of whose shacks lacked roofs and were open to the elements. However, as it only rains once every 20 years or so in Lima and rarely gets cold, this is not a major handicap.
Getting to the Ancient Ruins
I was headed for Paracas and Nazca, home to two ancient cultures even older than the Incas. Nazca is where the famous Nazca Lines are located, 32 huge figures carved into the desert in the shape of a hummingbird, monkey, fish, spider and other animals. Paracas is a coastal peninsula, and is the home of Peru’s only marine reserve.
The coast road to Paracas runs close to the sea and offers the contrast of a pleasant littoral with increasingly arid desert inland. I debarked in Pisco around lunchtime and was met by the local agent who took me to a charming B & B-type hotel, an old Spanish manor with a central courtyard. Pisco is a fishing town, but turned out to be very pleasantly Spanish provincial.
Like every other town in Peru it has Internet cafĂ©s about every 200 yards along the street. These are ridiculously cheap â€" logging on for 20 minutes to clear e-mail costs around 20 cents. Pisco has another claim to fame â€" it is the home of the Pisco sour, a classy cocktail of local brandy, limes, egg, sugar and ice. The result is both highly soothing and highly addictive.
On the recommendation of the local agent I took a taxi driven by Alejandro, his brother-in-law. Alejandro drove a Daewoo Tico, a vehicle which resembles a kindergarten-sized VW Golf â€" half the regular size and twice the noise. It is undoubtedly the most popular vehicle in Peru and widely used as a taxi.
Taxis are unlicensed and have no meters â€" you simply argue the price when you get in. They do have a fifth gear which enables them to travel at near sound barrier speeds through red lights and junctions. The other main form of transport is the jitney or mini-bus taxi which holds 15-25 passengers in its dozen or so seats. These cruise the streets, stopping on a dime whenever any pedestrian shows the least possible interest in boarding. Traffic then builds up behind with frantic hooting while discussions about fares and destinations take place.
Alejandro, the Daewoo and I headed some 25 miles inland to visit the Tambo Colorado Inca ruins. Although the area is real desert, there are oasis-like valleys running inland alongside rivers flowing down from the Andes. These provide irrigation for a couple of miles either side of the valley, allowing peasant farmers to grow crops of maize, potatoes, cotton and vegetables.
Alejandro proudly told me that Peru was the home of the potato and had over 400 varieties. The maize was often fermented into maize beer, called “Chicha,” which was sold in primitive locations along the roadside. These were marked by a tatty red flag outside the door.
The Civilization before the Incas
The ruins themselves were impressive and built of adobe, which due to the dry conditions was relatively well preserved. Depressions in the ground conceal obvious ruins beneath, so unexcavated that you can pick up shards of Inca pottery as you walk around. Alejandro was knowledgeable and we spent a pleasant afternoon talking and wandering round. The whole excursion cost me $20 (US dollars). Incidentally, US currency is fully accepted by all stores and services throughout Peru, with change usually given in the currency of your choice.
Next in line was a visit to the Ballesta Islands. My boat contained mostly youngsters from Israel, Finland, the USA and Australia, all back-packing around South America. Often called the poor man’s Galapagos, the Ballestas lie about 10 miles off the coast and are a sanctuary for thousands of birds and seals.
There are apparently no sharks in the area, even though seals constitute their favorite snack. As you approach from downwind it becomes increasingly obvious that sea birds have occupied the place for many thousands of years. There is still a guano mine on the main island.
On the way back we passed the “Candelabro,” a sign 500 feet high and 200 feet wide carved in the steep shoreline. Pirates used it as a landmark when they came to hide their ships. Like so much else in Peru its author is unknown. We concluded the trip with a visit to the Paracas state park, a total desert without any form of vegetation but with an awe-inspiring coastline that resembles that of our own California coast, but stripped of all vegetation and hung out to dry for a couple of hundred years.
Back on the bus to Nazca we arrived late in the evening at a splendid hotel, ready for my flight over the famous lines. By this stage the surrounding countryside had become such total desert that no animals, birds, trees or plants could be seen. In fact it resembled the photos beamed back from the surface of Mars. It is said that the area has seen no rain since the Spanish arrived, and probably many centuries before. As there is no wind there is little sand drifting, and thousand-year-old relics are still to be found lying untouched on the surface.
Lines in the Sand
Due to their size and structure the only way to view the lines is by air. There are several air taxi companies running flights in the area. Mine operated a Cessna Skywagon; I only had a minor coronary flutter when the pilot embraced the miniature Jesus figurine on top of the control panel before commencing his takeoff run. Flying at 800 feet to 1,000 feet the dozens of lines become obvious.
Some resemble people, animals, star constellations and birds, while others have no discernable shape. Some are rectangles several thousand yards long. These are the ones that Erich von Daniken claimed were landing strips for space aliens. If so, such craft must have had very tough landing gear to cope with the rocks strewn across them. I’m also inclined to think that aliens who had mastered intergalactic travel may also have mastered vertical takeoff and landing.
Many thousands of people must have labored to excavate these lines some 1,500-1,800 years ago, a few inches deep and running over many miles in incredibly harsh conditions. You have to marvel that such structures could be excavated with primitive tools on such a vast scale in such remote, harsh terrain.
Unless the climate has changed drastically, all supplies would have to have been trekked in for several hundred miles, implying a very high degree of social organization.
Back on the same bus to Lima, now showing Calcutta time, I reflected on the eight-hour bus trip needed to take a 30-minute round-trip flight. But it was truly an amazing sight. Maria Reiche, the German woman who basically discovered the lines and then led the fight to preserve them, lived in Nazca to the age of 97. She surely deserves the gratitude of all historians.
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