The Nazca Lines – We understand HOW but we have no idea WHY.

The lines are a series of geoglyphs in southern Peru – built by the Nazca people between 400 and 650 AD. The images are made with shallow trenches that expose the lighter coloured rock beneath and modern research suggests they would not have been difficult to realise even with simple tools and surveying. So that’s HOW they did it.

But we have no idea WHY. It has been proposed that they are signs to the gods in the sky, or constellation maps, or offerings to gods associated with water. From there the suggestions get a little more bizarre – landing strips for aliens, looms for ritual material making, and ideas that the Nazca must have had hot-air balloons to be able to get the perspective to build them. Bottom line – we have no bloody idea why they are there.

These photos were taken from a late afternoon flight in a Cessna 206 (the workhorse of third world aviation) and show one of the geometric shapes, a hummingbird, the monkey (whose spiral tail has become a national symbol for Peru), and strangest of all, the spaceman which looks like ET with ski boots on a hillside.

Check one more off the Bucket List.