When you visit Nazca you can see the impressing feat of the Peruvian man and the impressing work of precolombine cultures. It’s famous by it’s mysterious lines.
This city was founded en 1591 by the Spanish very near the town where the antique civilizations live, then they were dominated by the Incas.
Nazca, 18 a quiet town, of slow development. It’s main economic activity is based in the agriculture and the trade. The tourism in the zone is related directly by the Nazca lines and archeologism. It has good hotels and restaurants, you can travel here by car or bus from Lima, Ica or Arequipa.
Visiting Nazca
Nazca Lines
Declared "Archaeological World Heritage Site" by UNESCO (1994). Located in the arid Peruvian coastal plain, some 400 km south of Lima, the geoglyphs of Nazca and the pampas of Jumana cover about 450 sq. km. These lines, which were scratched on the surface of the ground between 500 B.C. and A.D. 500, are among archaeology's greatest enigmas because of their quantity, nature, size and continuity. The geoglyphs depict living creatures, stylized plants and imaginary beings, as well as geometric figures several kilometers long. They are believed to have had ritual astronomical functions. In order to appreciate the lines in all its magnitude, it is only possible from an airplane in flight.
Paredones
Archaeological Inca center, located at 2 km (1.24 miles) East of Nazca. Constructions of plazas, deposits, fortresses, ceremonial center.
Cahuachi
Cahuachi was a ceremonial center, a sacred destination of Nazca pilgrims between 100 and 500 AD. The ceremonies in the place included the construction of temples using thousands ofconical or wedge adobe bricks.
Estaquería
Archaeological complex of the Nazca culture, solar observatory, on platforms made of adobes and columns of "huarangos" trunks (variety of tree). This archaeological complex is near to Cahuachi.
Chauchilla
Pre-Inca cemetery, in which the profanation of tombs by the huaqueros, have left open some tombs in which you can appreciate the old inhabitants' remains. It is located at 28 km (17.4 miles) to the south of Nazca.
Sacaco
Located at 100 km (62 miles) to the S of Nazca, it is a rich location of fossil remains, especially of whales and primitive sharks of the Tertiary Era. Small paleontological museum. To arrive to this area, you should take the Pan-American South Highway until kilometer 539 and take a detour of 1.5 km to the museum site.
Punta San Juan de Marcona Reserved Area
Located in the coast area, to the west of the Nazca city, it is an extraordinary marine ecosystem of great biodiversity; it has a little extension of 54 hectares and has the biggest population of sea lions (seals) of the Peru concentrates.
The peninsula is characterized by its abrupt cliffs 30 meters high that hinder the access, from the high part, to the eighteen beaches that are formed at level of the reef. Besides the sea lions, in this Reserved Area inhabits the biggest colony of penguins of Humboldt (Spheniscus humboldtii) (it is considered that concentrates more than 50% of the total population of this species on the Peru), as well as zarcillos (Larosterna inca) and the three main species of dung birds (guaneras).
While the sea lions are located in the beaches and salient rocky, the penguins look for the protection of the cavities that they are formed in the walls of the cliffs and the birds rest and they nest in the sharp hillsides and in the plateau that extends in their higher area. (UNMSM)