When traveling the world on a budget you have to decide what is worth spending your money on and what you can miss out on—you'll be faced with so many tough decisions but if you want to be traveling for the long haul then you have to plan accordingly. While traveling through Peru, during my four months in South America, I knew I wanted to glimpse the ancient and mysterious Nazca Lines, hidden in the sun-scorched Peruvian desert. I’ve always been fascinated with them, as I am with many ancient creations, including the most beautiful temples in India and Menorca's mysterious ancient stone structures, so I caught a bus from Lima to the town of Nazca and booked into a guesthouse for a few nights with a plan to see the famous lines without breaking my small budget.
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| View of the Nazca Lines known as the 'hands' from the lookout tower |
The Nazca Lines are deeply shrouded in mystery, no one really knows what they mean, or how they were made, yet over three hundred of these designs or geoglyphs, as they’re known, are spread throughout the Peruvian desert, not too far from the Carretera Panamericana Sur highway, around 447kms south of Lima.
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| Entering a section of the Nazca Lines on the Carretera Panamericana Sur Highway |
Researchers have no way of knowing the true meanings behind the designs, but suggestions have hinted that some of the shapes could represent constellations. Others argue they are fertility symbols with lines to aid water flow and bring growth to the land. Whatever the purpose of the shapes and lines, it’s incredible to think they were carved by hand over 2,500 years ago and have been preserved naturally ever since. Even to this day, new shapes and drawings are being discovered. From Nazca, most tourists book onto a low-flying aircraft that flies over the desert in search of the lines, but for me, traveling on just $25 (£20) a day, I knew this would blow nearly a week's budget and just wasn’t an option. Undeterred, I hopped on one of the local buses running along the highway for a few Peruvian Soles and got off as we hit the area where the lines began. Not far away from where the bus dropped me was a mirador, or look-out point, from which you can climb up to get a better view of some of the surrounding designs. On the day I visited it was a beautifully clear and bright day and I managed to see the hands (also known as the frog), the tree, and the lizard, all of which were close to the mirador.
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| Part of the Nazca Lines known as the 'lizard' from the lookout tower |
The scale of the lines is mind-blowing and it's hard to comprehend how the people of Nazca could have created them so perfectly from the ground. With my mission complete, I took a few photos, hit the highway, and waited for a bus to pass that would take me back to town. You don’t need tons of money to have cool experiences like seeing the ancient Nazca Lines, but you do need a sense of adventure and a willingness to wait for public buses, especially out in the midday heat of the Peruvian desert.
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