Nasca - My Friend`s House

We arrived in Nasca after a short bus ride from Ica (2 hours) and instead of being hounded by the usual pushy men trying to get us to stay in their (usually crap) hotels we were met by a lovely lady who worked for a great little hostel called My Friend`s House! After hearing about all of the tours we could take to view the Nasca Lines (by plane or viewing tower) we decided that they were way too expensive for us. We did however see some of the lines from the bus on the journey so we didn`t feel we`d missed out too much.

Astrology/Nasca Lines Presentation

Instead we went to  local observatory which ran talks on the Nasca lines and astrology as recommemded to us by a guy we travelled with briefly. The talk was incredible and cost under 2 pounds each as students (cough cough!). We studied the lines which were projected onto the observatory ceiling and heard the different theories behind the lines:

1. The lines were all water channels to water sources as it`s one of the driest places on Earth (most commonly accepted).

2. Lines relate to astrology eg. monkey links to various constellations, lines show path of summer and winter solstice sunsets (Theory developed by Maria Reiche) 

3. Lines drawn by aliens to mark best landing places (no joke!).

We also got to look through a really powerful telescope at the moon which was almost a half moon. We could see crators and shadows and also got to take a photo of it using the telescope! As the moon was so bright we were unable to see many stars but we did see the plough upside down (being in the Southern Hemisphere) and also Pegasus which we`d never seen before. Overall it was an amazing evening.