Perú/Bolivia - Part III (Nazca II)

NAZCA (Part 2)


After eating lunch at the hotel... or having a cactus growing out of my head and putting a beer up my nose, depending which way you look at it, we took a short bus ride to el Cementerio de Chauchilla.

No, not a massive tire cemetery, even though I thought it was pretty cool...

These were the grave sites of the same civilization that drew the Nazca lines, and of course they were first discovered/uncovered by grave robbers (also known as huaqueros). Actually to this very day, there are still uncovered by robbers. It was a truly sad tale the guide told us... they sneak in at night with long poles and just poke around the desert until they hit something, then dig it all up, taking all the valuables and leaving the corpses and other "undesirables" in the sun.
Then, quite unfortunately, it is the archaeologists turn to sift through what is left of the graves.
The image the right shows some of the tombs uncovered, there are probably 2 dozen such sites (and probably more to come, if you ever make it down there). The Nazca peoples were buried, by family, in underground vaults made by mud bricks. The bodies were put beside offerings, dressed with special garments, put in a kneeling position, and mummified using a resin coating (even after over a 1000 years you can still see skin).



"Baby Steps"

Now, take a good close look at the following landscape picture (make sure to click it and view large):

Then ask yourself, what are all those white things scattered across the sand...?

"El Bone Yard"

To the right you see the most common site on the cemetery grounds... and yes, that is real dread locked hair. Many sites had a couple individuals, and many just bits and pieces.

To the left on the other hand is a bit more twisted. One can only imagine how many deaths happened during child birth... and the theory is (remember that hardly anything is known about this civilization) that because of their innocence, children could defend the graves from evil (ironic, but it still took a good 1200 years for the evil to prevail). So infant mummies were placed outside and in front of family tombs to protect them from danger. The image on the right shows where one of these babies was placed... surrounded by rocks. The molding in the middle is (with lack of a more professional sounding term) baby body juices that have hardened over time.

And on that note... we left the Chauchilla Cemetery. Our next stop was a good attempt at a tourist trap, I didn't pay attention to the tour, just walked off to take some proper Timography. To set the scene: it was a gold sifting site, which they have been doing the same way for centuries... [best viewed large]

To the right you can see someone working a platform (while others watch) which is attached to a large rock, which in turn somehow aides in the art of gold sifting... again, I'm not really sure, as I said earlier, I wasn't paying attention.
How 'bout them color tones...?! These are what most houses look like, built with mud bricks. I didn't have my tripod with me that night either, so you can actually see the shadow of my camera on a bike seat (known by the locals as a trípode bicicleta).

It was then dinner time... a couple of us decided to go out on our own and find something new... we first went to a "restaurant." Gatha, someone from the group (whose blog can be seen HERE), went to use the bathroom and came back with an expression of absolute disgust... I won't get into details, this isn't that kind of blog, but apparently the scene included evidence of numerous visits and a pair of underwear. So we finished our drink (thank god that's all we had ordered!) and went somewhere else.

After dinner awaited the most horrible bus ride I've ever taken (although it would later be trumped by a trip through Bolivia), this is the bus ticket:
So if you get one just like it... uhm, well then tough sh!t I guess... cuz you're in for the ride of your life!
It was a 10hr night bus ride from Nazca to Perú's #2 city, Arequipa. To say I didn't sleep was an understatement... I was more awake than ever. The bus driver was LOCO. I had to fasten myself with seat belts just to stay in the seat... I swear. I am not exaggerating one bit... and I still fell out of my seat twice! It was terrible, we went off the road a couple times, and when you see some of the drop offs, it was not very cool at all... passing cars left and right, and using racing lines at every possible turn. I also had a seat towards the back, which doesn't help the whole centripetal force thing.
Funny thing was how all us gringo's were all looking at each other throughout the trip shocked, and the locals were asleep like it was totally cool for Schumacher up front to be racing an enourmous bus through the Andes... in complete darkness. Think about when you're in a car and someone abruptly starts, stops, turns and generally drives like a maniac... now imagine yourself in Peruvian tour bus. Looking back, it's hilarious, but trust me... that trip was not cool.