19 October 2025 : Nazca

Situated in the desert, Nazca is visibly a poorer city than Cusco or Arequipa. It has a few interesting tourist sites, most famously the Nazca lines.

I took a private tour of some of the other places of interest. Although the Nazca lines are a tourist draw, nothing is really secured and travel to the other sites relies on poorly maintained roads through the desert. 

The Chauchilla Cemetery is a desert burial site from the pre-Incan Nazca culture. The bodies were preserved partly due to treatment with resin but mostly due to the dry desert climate in which they were buried. Sadly the site has been looted by modern grave robbers. The site consists of a wide open space with the tombs being pits in the ground with a rough roof suspended on poles above each one.

In the surrounding desert there are many areas strewn with bones, I understand from where these and other tombs have been robbed. Whereas Inca leaders were buried with gold and wealth I understand these people were buried with more mundane items such as pottery, but these could be sold to tourists. The grave robbing has since been cracked down on by the Peruvian government. Clambering up mounds of sand in the desert I appreciated for the first time how much easier it is to move at these lower altitudes - a similar level of activity would be much more tiring in Cusco.

An interesting sight in this area is this 400 year old Huarango Guli, the "tree of life". Its roots drive a couple of hundred feet into the ground in search of water which it feeds into the topsoil, providing hydration to other plants as well as itself.

The Cahuachi Pyramids are vast structures that have been excavated from the desert. Many more such buildings are believed to exist still covered by the sands. They are believed to have been used for ceremonial purposes including human sacrifice and ritual burials. The mummy of a "Nazca priestess" buried in splendour was extracted from one of the chambers. The pyramids overlook some of the Nazca lines.