Peru – Page 5 – Traveling Mark

Solar Clock Geoglyph of Palpa

Even though unmarked, I found the way to the Mirador (viewpoint) in “la zona de Sacramento”, located a little over 1 km from the city of Palpa. There was a path that lead me up parched hill with no vegetation and cracked rocks from blasting sun that bakes them with intense force and hardly any clouds to shade them.

The dusty way up leads around the hill and at first offers no indication of the surprise that awaits a hiker. But once up on the ridge, you get treated to the magnificent view of an enigmatic geoglyph known locally as Reloj Solar (Solar Clock).

Photo: Aerial View of Solar Clock Geoglyph in Palpa

According to what I found out, based on how a shadow falls onto the lines that represent the Solar Clock at the time of the equinox, would determine whether the harvest in the coming year will be good or bad.

The Ministry of Culture (Mincul) of Peru has found out that on the slopes and plateaus surrounding Palpa, there are at least a thousand pre-Hispanic geoglyphs that were designed centuries before the emblematic Nazca Lines.

Photo: Adding My Rock to Pile at Mirador - Solar Clock in Background — Photo: Adding My Rock to Pile at Mirador – Solar Clock in Background

The Ministry of Culture maintains that Palpa’s geoglyphs were made by the Paracas and Topará cultures, between 400 AC and the beginning of our era.

Photo: I Placed Camera Against Rock and Set Timer to 5 Seconds

I walked up to the Mirador, which is a small structure that looks like an open bus stop, and snapped a few pictures of the Solar Clock and the nearby runways from there. The Mirador however is not on top of the hill, but rather just parts way up. I decided to walk all the way to the top.

Photo: View of Mirador and Geoglyphs from Top of Hill in Palpa

From there I also got the view of the city of Palpa, as well as the Mirador itself. The cloudless sky that this area is notorious for provided for intense head-bake, so staying for an extended period of time was not too sound, plus it was getting later in the day, so I decided to descend.

Photo: City of Palpa As Seen from Hill Overlooking Solar Clock Geoglyph

I walked down to the crest where the lines composing the Solar Clock are, and stayed for a bit right beside them to soak up their energy. I then had a brief meditation at one of the runways, and started to make way back to Palpa.

Photo: Getting Really Close to Geoglyph of Solar Clock in Palpa

The whole experience of discovering the geoglyph and being able to get close to it was electrifying. The awe-inspiring, intoxicating aura of the ancient energy lines has left me feeling uplifted and exalted. I will never forget that feeling.

Photo: Brief Meditation at Energy Runway in Palpa

Palpa – Where Geoglyphs Predate Nazca Lines

I have concluded my stay in Nazca with a tour that was a lot of fun, but also a lot of pain. But while there, I found out that in a town of Palpa, which is only about 60km from Nazca, there can also be found geoglyphs which actually predate those of Nazca by estimated 600 to 1,000 years. I had to make a trip to Palpa to check it out for myself.

Photo: Spiny Desert Vegetation I Found in Palpa and Nazca

The ride with PeruBus cost only 4 Soles, and whereas the buses for Ica, which pass through Palpa leave from Nazca every 30 minutes, it takes little effort to get to the little town.

In Palpa, I secured myself a room for 35 Soles, and went out to rehydrate and explore the town. It was weekend, so most businesses around the main square were closed, though there was enough activity along the Pan-American highway to buy fruits or grab a lunch.

The only tour operator I could find in the entire town was closed, so I decided to wander around on my own, hoping I would spot something interesting even without help. The girl who waited in a local restaurant where I grabbed a bite didn’t know a whole lot about the geoglyphs, but I found out that there is a “Mirador” in Palpa, from where it is possible to see something, though she could not tell me what it was. I decided to find the mirador in hopes it would lead me to some of the ancient images.

Photo: Large Geoglyph on Mountain Side in Palpa

Unfortunately I kept getting weird stares from the locals when I asked about the lines, so I ended up walking up and down aimlessly until I finally got on the right track to the Mirador. It was however not anything like that in Nazca. The uphill walk there was however definitely worth it.

Riding and Sandboarding the Dunes of Cerro Blanco

Once everyone had their fill of human remains from the Nazca desert cemetery, we rode our “buggy” deeper into the desert and toward the sand dunes of Cerro Blanco.

Here’s the video of fun our driver was having with us as he gave the buggy hell riding the dunes up and down:

Cerro Blanco was our last scheduled stop, after which we were to return back to Nazca. However, because the tour started more than an hour late, the journey toward the dunes was done when daylight was fading, and by the time we had our share of fun snowboarding down the dunes, it was dark and we had ahead of us almost an hour long journey back to town, but this time not only through the stormy winds, but also through near freezing nighttime temperatures.

Sandboarding was hell of a lot of fun, though. We already had sand everywhere – in our teeth, in our eyes, in our ears, as well as in all our clothes and inside our socks, so rolling around in sand was not gonna make it any worse than it already was. So we just went for it and enjoyed every minute of gliding down those endless sandy dunes:

But the ride back was rough as all hell. The wind was as relentless as ever and it was just overall brutally cold, so with the “buggy” providing absolutely no protection from the elements, the endless ride back through the pitch black desert as nobody could catch a break from violent shivering, was savage. I was a trembling wreck walking to the hotel after being dropped off, but at least at that time I knew that the hellish ride was over.

Nazca Desert Cemetery with Sun Bleached Human Remains

Having gotten seriously windswept by the sand storm on the way to and at the Cahuachi Pyramids, our Edunas tour continued through the desert surrounding Nazca into an ancient cemetery that was in the recent years looted by treasure hunters.

The harsh weather continued as we were getting hit by strong winds and sand kept blasting into our faces and every bodily orifice. The entire landscape we were passing through however kept me very appreciative of the experience.

Photo: Landscape Around Desert Cemetery Is Very Moon Like

I have never seen anything like this before. I kept thinking to myself – if NASA wanted to fake another moon landing or a Mars mission, they could film it here and nobody would believe it could have been filmed on Earth. In Peru. Absolutely mindblowing, moon-like scenery kept emerging from every dune, after every turn.

After passing several kilometers across unmarked desert (props to the driver), we reached the cemetery, which was essentially a large swath of the desert within the endless sands of which the Nazca culture buried their dead.

Photo: Skull and Bones at Nazca Desert Cemetery

The graves were disturbed by treasure hunters who thought they would find gold or other valuables with the dead, as other ancient South American cultures used to do that, but the Nazcas did not. Consequently, the looters came off either empty handed, or with little of truly high value, forever changing the historical site they had ransacked.

Photo: Hills Containing Human Remains from Nazca Times Were Recently Looted by Treasure Seekers

It would appear that the Nazcas were creating mass graves, which would consist of the piled up dead who were then covered with sand, creating sand hills within which the corpses of the deceased were meant to dwell. The living, having had the strong beliefs in the afterlife, buried their dead along with pottery filled with food, so they have something to eat on their journey into the outer world.

Photo: The Living Left Dead with Pottery Filled with Food Such As Corn for the Deceased

As a result, the sun bleached bones are often mixed up with blackened corncobs, clay pots, even ropes. The whole area has a very surreal feel to it. Some of the skulls still have the original hair attached to them. Many are remarkably well preserved by the dry, dusty climate.

Our tour guide told us the cemetery had been lost under the sands of the Nazca Desert until 1920, when it was rediscovered by tomb raiders. The ransacking left many of the bones and skulls unearthed, offering one a unique opportunity to find themselves surrounded by a sea of bone matter, but the ransacking caused that peace of the ones buried there has been disturbed.

Photo: Nazca Sign Built from Sun Bleached Bones

Our driver snapped a picture of me sitting in the buggy, while other tour-goers still wandered among the bones of the dead:

Riding the Sand Storm to Adobe Pyramids at Cahuachi

Unless you visit Nazca or its surroundings between January and March, the weather you will encounter will be sunny and hot, with no clouds to obscure the sun during the day, but bone chilling cold at night.

You can tell by the entire surroundings that this place is baked by the unobstructed sun a lot, and by just visiting outside of the brief rainy season, it’ll all make sense why. Nazca is for all intents and purposes a desert with everything that makes a place a desert.

At 2pm when the Edunas tour was scheduled to start it was an unbearably frying day. At 3 something pm when it factually started, the day was still unbearably frying. Taking a bit of an air in an open “buggy” during the ride to and from the aqueducts was a welcome refresher. But things quickly changed after we started the passage across the vast desert field separating Nazca from the Adobe Pyramids at Cahuachi – ceremonial center of the Nazca culture.

Photo: Gradient Sky Over the Pyramids of Cahuachi

A few minutes into the ride, we were hit by a savage sand storm. The wind came out of nowhere and hit us with so much force, every single one of us had sand in every single orifice and pore. Our driver told us he’s been doing these tours for years, but has never experienced anything like that before. He however encouraged us by saying that the storm will likely pass in maybe 10 or 20 minutes and everything will go back to normal. That actually never happened.

Photo: Tour Goers Holding On to Their Hats While Visiting the Pyramids of Cahiachi

We arrived at the Pyramid, where we were getting relentlessly hammered by the wind so strong we could barely hold our footing. A guide was trying to tell us the history of the pyramid, but no one could hear a word of what he was saying, plus standing in this wind that relentlessly blows sand into you and shows you not a bit of mercy was no fun at all. I remember catching something about only 5% of the entirety of the complex having been uncovered so far. Yet the uncovered part was already expansive.

Being an active archeological site, the visitor walkways were marked with white stones and signs everywhere reminded us all to not wander off marked walkways. Meanwhile, the storm kept pounding the living crap out of us, and whereas our vehicle was an open “buggy“, we had absolutely nowhere to hide from it.

Photo: Faking a Smile While Getting Blasted with High Winds

The road to the pyramid consisted of about 20 kilometers of an unpaved desert crossing. The storm encompassed the entire desert, so we were within it during the entire crossing, the visit to the pyramid and basically the entire time henceforth.

All those scenes you see in movies about people layng on the ground and covering up with specialty blankets to wait sand storms out, before they emerge from two feet of sand on top of them – that’s what we should have done, but instead kept going.

Photo: White Stones Mark the Walkway at Cahuachi Pyramids

You could not keep your eyes open because sand was getting blown into them. Your regular shades are worthless during a sand storm. No matter how tightly you kept your lips together, you could always taste the crunch on your mouth as sand got in there anyway. When I reached into my ear to clean off the collected sand from the ear canal, I was surprised by the thick layer that accumulated in there in minutes. The clothes – I stopped worrying about those very quickly. I could feel sand between my toes as it snuck its way through my hiking boots into the thick sheep wool socks.

Photo: Walls of Ceremonial Center of Nazca Culture at Cahuachi

It was simply brutal and I got to say I got more than I bargained for from the tour. How awesome is that? Sure I got the absolute living crap beat out of me, but the whole time I was thinking to myself – holy s%$t, I’m riding a massive sand storm in Nazca, Peru.

Money could not buy that experience. I’m in the real desert and the desert sure lets me know she’s indeed real. No joke, this was some serious sand storm and we spent hours in it without any protection, including an hour after dark, when the temperature dropped to near freezing. Talk about adventure in every sense of the word. This I will surely never forget. I’m not even sure the word “relentless” does it justice.

Check out the video that provides a better perspective of what the storm was like. We stopped because we thought the storm would pass. It didn’t. So we rode through it. It would not have been easy getting that on camera:

Organized Tour to Sites Outside Nazca with Edunas

Having returned from the trip to the Mirador in the early afternoon, I was happy with my visit to Nazca. I flew over the enigmatic lines, and also got to see them from up close.

Photo: Traveling Mark at City Sign of Nasca

I was however not too excited about the proposition to extend my stay in Nazca due to the fact that the availability of fruits in the city is very limited, and they are very expensive. Most expensive from all places I have visited in Peru so far. Being a person who likes his fruits and wants an ample supply each day, this was off putting.

Nevertheless, as I was deciding on whether to stay a bit more in Nazca or make my move elsewhere, I stumbled upon one of the tour agencies that caught my eye. There are many of them all over Nazca, but Edunas somehow felt right.

Under normal circumstances, I would not take an organized tour and would instead get myself to where I want to go the same way I got myself on foot to the airport for the flight over the lines, or to the Mirador by bus.

A brief search on the internet however showed that some of the other interesting sites around Nazca are way too far off to get there on foot, and are also not along paved roads, so the access would have to be in a specialty off road vehicle. Nevermind the fact that the dozens of miles of unmarked passage across the desert can only be done by someone who knows how to navigate the endless dunes.

Edunas had a tour lined up that was to commence at 2pm and last until 6pm. It was in an off-road “buggy” as they called it, and involved visits to Aqueducts of Ocongalla, the Pyramid of Cahuachi, the desert cemetery, and it all got topped off with sandboarding on the Dunes of Cerro Blanco.

The cost the tour was 50 Soles, which I was assured by the agent selling me the tour was a good price. At the time of buying I had no way of knowing whether that’s true or not, but in hindsight I think it was indeed a decent deal. The vehicles take a good deal of beating having to ride on rock covered arid soil, and the distances were truly in the tens of kilometers, 90% of them were off road.

Overall I would have been reasonably happy with the tour, but whereas we were told the tour would commence at 2pm, and come 3pm there was hardly any sign of it beginning anytime soon, the first impression was not the greatest. It was only made worse by the lies that the reason the “buggy” has not shown up yet was because it was picking up other tour-goers from their hotels. That was obviously not true, seeing as it showed up (when it finally showed up) without anyone, and the lot of us already at the office got on, and only then we went to pick up the rest from a nearby hotel.

I could have used the time I spent waiting at the Edunas office for something more productive to do, had they been frank and told me the tour would be delayed. And I would have expected them to make up for it by coming to pick me up at a chosen location, or whatever. Instead they were telling me the “buggy” was only 10 minutes away, but every time I asked, it was always 10 minutes away. It ended up being more than an hour and nobody was being picked up during that time.

Photo: Selfie Inside Aqueduct of Ocongalla

When it finally arrived, we took off but at that time I had no idea that what started as your seemingly plain everyday tour, would turn out to be a major adventure involving wild riding on the storm – quite literally.

Everything went normal during the trip to the Ocongalla Aqueducts, which were an ancient cascading structure that funneled underground water for irrigation and drinking in the area with virtually no surface water.

Photo: Water Inside Ocongalla Aqueducts Is Safe to Drink But Is Used for Irrigation

It was an impressive feat of ancient engineering, planning and thinking and a wonderful showcase of human ingenuity dating back hundreds of years.

Here’s a GoPro video of the ride down the dirt road to the Ocongalla Aqueducts, right outside the city limits of Nazca:

Nazca Geoglyphs of Hands and Tree from Observation Tower

The day after flying over the Nazca lines, I went to the Soyuz bus station to ask if it was possible to take a bus to the “Mirador” – an observation tower made of metal from where two of the Nazca geoglyphs can be observed. The view would not be the same as that from the plane, as it wouldn’t be from directly above, but rather from an angle, but there would be also no moving around the images, so one could really soak up the view, and enjoy the details that can’t be caught during the brief fly over.

Photo: Mirador, or Observation Towar at Two Nazca Geoglyphs

I wasn’t sure where exactly the Mirador was, nor whether it’s possible to take a bus there, but got good news – the Mirador is right on the PanAmericana Highway, and the PeruBus with the service between Ica and Nazca not only passes by it, it has a stop by it. That meant I passed by it when I was coming to Nazca from Ica without knowing or realizing it.

The bus to Ica, and thus to the Mirador, leaves Nazca every 30 minutes and the trip costs 3 Soles. I bought one and off I went.

It took about 15 minutes for the bus to arrive at the Mirador, which told me the tower was further from the city of Nazca than I thought. The access to the tower costs 3 Soles, and there are several police on site mostly to ensure nobody enters the fields, as it’s now prohibited.

Photo: Geoglyph of Hands with Entry Ticket on Observation Tower

From the tower it is possible to see two geolyphs – Hands and Tree. There is another, less significant image further up from the Tree, which is remarkable by the fact that the highway passes through it and is thus split by the highway.

Photo: Selfie from Nazca Observation Tower with Geoglyph Tree in Background

I really wanted to get on one of the energy driveways and soak up its ancient energy, but the police were really strict about not allowing anyone access and when I got close enough to barely snap a selfie with it behind me, they already sounded their whistles.

Photo: Section of Nazca Geoglyph Tree from Ground Level

Having marvelled at the images for a while, I then boarded a PeruBus that just came from the opposite direction and returned back to Nazca.

Overall, I thought the trip to the Mirador was worth it when done with a bus. Then it’s not overly expensive and the experience of being so close to two of the main images, and being able to observe their every detail made the whole trip certainly worthwhile. I would recommend everyone visiting Nazca to take the mus to the Mirador, but I would not pay 50 Soles to get there with a taxi.

Video of Flight Over the Nazca Lines with Aerial Views of Geoglyphs

While flying over the Nazca Lines aboard the Aero Paracas plane, I recorded a bit of video with my cell phone, although I mostly used the same phone for taking photos which can be found in this gallery.

The flight consisted of fast swings from one side to another, from tilting sharply to the right to tilting sharply to the left, from moving from one geoglyph to another in order to fit them all into the short flight window, so the opportunities for recording a captivating video were limited at best.

The video contains the take off from the Maria Reiche Neuman Airport with the arid landscape surrounding the city of Nazca, aerial views of a few of the geoglyphs, namely the Astronaut, Monkey, Hummingbird, Spider, Condor, and a whole bunch of energy runways with lesser known images, concluding with the views of the mountains surrounding the geoglyph fields filmed on the return journey back to the airport.

Nazca Lines and Geoglyphs from the Air

The weather in Nazca was great, but that could be expected in the place where it only ever rains in January, February or March. The rest of the year it’s bone dry, which explains why the entire area is either desert, or rigid rock covered dry land on which basically nothing grows.

We took off, and the captain’s assistant informed us that we’ll approach each major Nazca images, from the air and the captain will tilt the plane first right, and then left, so both people sitting on the right and the left get a good view of the geoglyphs. He also informed us that the entire flight would last about 36 minutes.

Photo: Captain and Assistant On Board Aero Paracas Plane in Nazca, Peru

The captain did exactly as we were told and took a half circle over each geoglyph with a plane tilted to the right, before doing the same with the plane tilted to the left. This was great for making sure everyone on board gets a good view of the lines, but whereas the low altitude flight in the small plane was already pretty bumpy to begin with, this fast and rapid tilting from one side to the other made for a fast onset of airsickness.

I started feeling it too, but the poor girls who were with me felt it more and quickly went from losing all enthusiasm to take pictures, to grabbing the vomit bags and dumping the contents of their stomachs into them. I felt the whole time like I was never too far from that either, but managed to hold it back with deep breathing. I felt really sorry for the girls. One especially had a very hard time coping with it, which I can imagine totally ruined the whole experience for her. It took her a while to recover even after we got off the plane.

Overall, the flight was amazing and so were the views. The lines extend over a large area, much larger than I thought, and the vastly flat parts containing the images are surrounded by towering vegetation-free hills, making the entire area spectacular to behold. It’s arid, sun fried and wind swept in the most profound ways imaginable.

Photo: Map of Nazca Geoglyphs Visited During Flight with Aero Paracas

I was glad I caught the last flight of the day. The sun was lower in the sky, offering a deeper dimension to the experience and a less intense head fry. I had good experience flying with Aero Paracas and would recommend the company to anyone. Their equipment is well maintained, pilots well trained and the staff professional. The flight with them was safe and enjoyable, so I ended up giving the flight crew a tip of 10 Soles.

Here’s the gallery of the images I took from the air:

Photo: The Amazing Runways of Nazca Are Full of Universal Energy

Photo: Different Angle View of Whale (Ballena) Image at Nazca

Photo: Nazca Lines Image of Whale (Ballena)

Photo: Nazca Geoglyph of Trapezoid (Trapecios)

Photo: Nazca Landscape with Image of Triangle

Photo: Geoglyph of Astronaut (Astronauta) Is on a Sloped Hill

Photo: Broader View of Runways and Triangles at Nazca

Photo: Nazca Geoglyph Image of Monkey (Mono) with Neaby Decorative Lines

Photo: Nazca Lines Image of Monkey (Mono)

Photo: Dog (Perro) Is the Smallest Nazca Geoglyph We Have Flown Over with Aero Paracas

Photo: Nazca Lines Closeup Image of Hummingbird (Colibri)

Photo: Nazca Lines Image of Hummingbird (Colibri) Is on Elevated Rock

Photo: Nazca Lines Aerial Image of Multiple Energy Runways, Triangle and Rectangle

Photo: Nazca Lines of Two Smaller, Unspecified Geoglyphs

Photo: Nazca Lines Image of Condor with Nearby Rectangle

Photo: Geoglyph of Nazca Spider with Multiple Energetic Runways

Photo: Nazca Lines Aerial Image of Spider (Arana)

Photo: Nazca Lines Aerial Image of Tree (Arbol)

Photo: Nazca Lines Image of Parrot (Papagayo)

Photo: I Do Not Know What This Geoglyph Is

Photo: Unknown Nazca Geoglyphs with Multitude of Energetic Runways

Photo: Nazca Image Alcatraz Is Among the Longest

Photo: Nazca Observation Tower is on Side of Pan American Highway, Between Geoglyphs of Tree and Hands

Photo: Nazca Image Tree (Arbol) Is Next to Hands and Pan American Highway

Photo: Nazca Image Hands (Manos) Is Next to PanAmerican Highway

Huacachina – Desert Oasis Near Ica in Peru

Huacachina is the only desert oasis in South America. It is located about 5 kilometers from the city of Ica in Peru. Found in the middle of the coastal desert, the oasis has a lagoon of greenish colors whose origin, it is believed, is caused by the outcrop of groundwater that ended up giving life to the beautiful vegetation that surrounds it.

Photo: Huacachina, Desert Oasis Near Ica, Peru

Like many of the rivers and lakes of Peru, the Huacachina also has part of its charm in a legend. It is said a princess of the Inca lineage lived in that place. Her name was Huacca China and she possessed incredible beauty, as well as a voice so beautiful that her songs melted the hearts of men in such a way that no one could hold back tears.

The legend says that on one occasion when the princess was alone a hunter saw her, was enchanted with her and began to chase her. The princess ran but her costume began to tear and fell off, turning into the sheet of sand that forms the desert around Huacachina. After that, the princess dropped a mirror that she always carried with her and that turned into the lagoon. The princess, the legend maintains, became a mermaid and the inhabitants of Ica tell that even today, that siren keeps appearing on moonlit nights where its song can be heard.

Photo: Statue of Huaca China, Princess Who Gave Birth to Lagoon and Is Said to Dwell In It as Mermaid

When I got to Huacachina it was already late afternoon and the entire place was flooded with tourists. I have no idea if it’s busy like that all the time, but the overly touristy feel of the place made me rethink and backtrack on the idea I had before taking the trip, that I would stay over for a night.

It seemed to me that the entirely of buildings erected around Huacachina are either a restaurant, a souvenir shop, or a hotel. In other words, albeit alluring, Huacachina is a tourist trap.

Photo: Huacachina Is a Tourist Trap Overcrowded with Tourists

The lagoon is small enough to easily walk around on foot, although not the entire circumference is paved. If you want to go around all of it, you’ll get your feet sandy. It’s probably best to take you shoes off and walk on the sand barefoot, because your feet will be buried in it with each step.

The sandy slopes surrounding Huacachuna were full of tourists who either flew kites, glided down on sandboards, or just relaxed on the warm sand. I walked up a sandy slope to snap a few pics of the lagoon, but did not stick around too much. There was simply too much going on with kids running amok, kite lines hitting you in the face, random youths sliding down the sand, making it fall on you and get into your every orifice, so even though the views were spectacular, the place was simply too busy for my liking.

Before leaving, I also climbed a small hill of sand with a cross on top of it. The hill is on the side of the road at the beginning of Huacachina coming from Ica. I think that may actually be the only access road to the lagoon.

Photo: Cross at Entrance to Huacachina Overlooking the Lagoon

I’m glad I finished the day with the trip to Huacachina – it’s a great place, definitely worth a visit, but to make any more of it than just pay it a visit for a couple of hours was not worth it for me, because it’s just too overrun with tourists for my taste.