Lines in the Desert Sands

The map of the flight plan was behind the desk of the Nasca Trails Hostel. The Aeronasca company they contracted with is a professionally run outfit. I can attest to that.

This was really special to me. I had looked forward to this for decades and never thought I'd really ever get to do it, even as late as when I was finally arriving here. But here at last I participated in this wonderful experience and it is my pleasure to share it with you.

The environment, departure hall, and flight line of this busy little airport

A final pre-flight briefing and we were off

From here on, pretty much all but the final shots are post-flight analysis and exploration. The pilots would tip one wing at the ground, yell and point at the area where they knew the figure were located, and we saw pretty much nothing. It was very bright out, and we were in constant motion. After the first event we all were laughing. It was great fun for a roller-coaster ride, but the best we could do was to point the cameras in the direction they pointed and shoot, hoping for the best. I am using this one, where the tower is that I would later find out about and visit, as an example. It was one of the easiest areas to spot the figures in the sand from the air. There are three of them. I could only see one.

Above is the lizard, apparently damaged by road construction and vehicle tracks (construction?) long before anyone had discovered the figures. The Peruvian Army even did tank maneuvers in this desert, not knowing that they were destroying part of their national Inca heritage. What I had to do was to use image editing software to bring the figures into prominence. That worked well most of the time. Finding them was another matter. The tree and the hands are shown below.

I ended up using this map (larger on their website - see link) and then tried to orient myself according to the features they showed to find the figures hidden in the sand. The spider, to name one, I had absolutely no hope of finding. I was sure that I had missed it, however, using their map and analyzing all of the photos along the flight path shown on the wall of the office, I went to maximum magnification at what I thought was the correct spot in the desert and suddenly, I could hardly believe my eyes, there it was. In fact, I had no idea of most of the figures that I managed to capture somehow.

This banner will take you to their excellent website where one of the maps is even interactive

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