Nazca Lines & Chauchilla Cemetery

Ever since Erich von Däniken first mentioned the strange lines on the Nazca altiplano, I was hooked. Could it really be that aliens had created them? Or was the archaeologists' outcry that they had been created by the ancient Nazca people justified? Flying over the lines in a small four-seater Cessna plane, I got a first-hand view and could clearly see the lines criss-crossing each other without any apparent plans wasn't it for those that clearly depicted figures. There was the monkey with its curled up tail, the colibri with its long beak and the friendly figure up on a little mountain waving at us. This figure is called the astronaut. Astronaut? Well, it could easy be a figure of a being from outer space. But the archaeologiest have taken the fun out of it again and now proclaim that it is an owl-man. Did the ancient Nazca people really have a similar association we have have with owls? But the truth is, that we are actually none the wiser with this interpretation. The riddle of the lines has still to be cracked - but in whose interest would this be? Wouldn't the aura of mystery - such as described by von Däniken - be the one to be followed as it brings scores of knowledge-seeking tourists to this barren place and it helps to keep its economy afloat?

A little further down the road is the necropolis of Chauchilla. The desert heat managed to preserve the remains of many ancient Nazca people buried here. But one thing is striking, namely the general absence of the line-patterns on their clothing and ceramics.

Do the archaeologists really know something or are they, like the rest of us, just prodding a long white stick into dark places until they find a theory they are happy to stick with?