Day 17 - Nasca (continued)

Saturday, 30 August 2014

In the afternoon I took a guided tour, where I met the same 2 people who were with me on the plane this morning, a cute mother and daughter, Laura and Siobhan from Chicago. We saw the aqueducts built by the first people to settle in Nasca, who were believed to have inhabited the area from 200-400 BC to 600 AD. They built underground canals so that water from the mountain could be used by them for irrigation as well as everyday use. What fascinated me the most was the wells that they built, it is circular of course but winding downwards, so that one could walk down to the water instead of using a bucket to bring water up. I thought that was ingenious. And under the wells are the underground canals which go in different directions so that water could be transported to different areas. The entire aqueducts are made of stones from the river, and it was never destroyed by any earthquakes. I do believe the ancient people were better engineers, architects and scientists than we are now, but there is always hope.

From here we went to a nearby mountain and from a high point, we could see the outline of a huge triangle which could be seen much clearer from the air. Unlike the Nasca lines, this triangle is shaped by the arrangement of stones. Like the Nasca lines, the lines are perfectly straight as if some one had a huge ruler. And as usual, it has not been disturbed by wind or earth quake. Rain could be dangerous but it hardly rains here, it is a desert area.

Lastly we went to the ruins of an Inca temple or an Inca palace, built nearby a mountain. The Incas believed the mountains to be gods, Appu. So many of their temples are built near mountains. Nasca is a really small town, even smaller than Ica, about 240,000 people. It is really a desert, an extension of the Atacama desert in Chile.

After this tour, I went to buy some souvenirs and had dinner, Quinota which is quinoa, rice, prawns, avocado and mango. It is delicious. After that I had no where to go because my bus to Arequipa was only at 10 pm., so I hung around and wrote this blog. I didn't sleep well last night I dunno why, so I am looking forward to sleeping on the bus later.