We're up for a quick breakfast at 7:00 and then met our guide at 8:15 to head to the airport.
The first activity for the day was a 30 min flight over the Nazca Lines in a Cessna 207. The Nazca lines were etched into the dry Nazca plain approximately 1500 years ago by the Nazca people. They have remained as originally laid out as the area receives around 1 mm of rain a year. We had both heard of the Nazca lines from the 1970's movie "Chariots of the Gods". The authors of the movie make the case that the lines are landing directions for the alien visitors to earth. One of the drawings is called the "astronaut" but to us looks more like an alien waving good bye.
Our flight took us over 12 of the more well known lines but the plains are filled with hundreds of figures and many trapezoids and shapes. Luckily we got to fly at the 2500 ft altitude vs. the 3000 ft so had a lower view and saw all 12 shapes. Sometimes they are difficult to see. There are approximately 30 site seeing planes operating out of the airport. Last year there was more than 180,000 tourist viewing the lines from the air.
After the flight, Antonio our guide took us on a 2 hour tour of a anicent gravesite ~ 3 kms into the desert. There are a number of these grave sites throughout the Nazca valley with this one being the only protected. The tour started with an explanation from our guide on why the area was pocked marked, and littered with bones, cotton and shards of pottery. It turns out that one of the main money making activities in the area was grave robbing. This was from the 1940's through to the 80's and that the local farmers would dig up the graves, take whatever they could sell and just abandoned the rest on surface. The valuables included the pottery and textile and some jewerly, the bodies and cotton that the bodies had been buried were left on the surface. You can not blame the farmers, as we can imagine how poor this area was in the mid 1900's and the lack of any other options.
The people practiced mummification utilizing the arid climate to do most of the work and would place the mummies in shallow tombs. The Cultural Ministrative of Peru have recreated 12 tombs using real mummies and artifacts. So we got to spend an hour walking around the mummies while looking over more than a hectare of pockmarked land speckled with bleached white human bones. A very different kind of tourist attraction indeed.
From here we traveled back to the town of Nazca. It turned out that our travel arrangements included a visit to a pottery workshop which worked in the Nasca style and a gold mill. Our lucky day!
The potters workshop was interesting, and started off by letting each of us hold a 1500 year Nazca vase. This was followed by a demo on how the pot is thrown, painted and then fired in the same method as practices 1500 years ago. The tour ended with us being given the opportunity to purchase some of their wares.
Nazca turns out to have a vibrant mining industry, in fact there was a number of smaller copper (SEW) mill on the way to the gravesite. They were quite small with no mines visible, and the town itself was full of small welding shops and assay labs. After the pottery tour we walked about 400 meters over to a gold mill. Here we were given a talk on the gold milling process in use at this facility. In addition to the talk they made use of scale models to get the message across. The mining in Nazca is carried out in a very small scale or as our guide called it "traditional mining". Mining is done mostly by hand in the mountains surrounding Nazca. The miners are just locals who prospect in the hills. Once they find an interesting showing they take a sample, do a field assay (assayed by the miner by crushing, pulverizing and panning the sample by hand) and if it shows enough colour they will start work on the vein. At least this is what they are telling us tourist. Once enough ore has been mined the miner brings it to town for processing. The guy giving the lecture stated that most ore arrives in 60 kg bags or sometimes in dump truck. As a matter of fact we had followed a dump truck this morning with a load of ore, with 3 men in the back with their shovels. 20 tonnes loaded by hand.
Now back to the milling process. The ore was crushed at the mine prior to shipping (I did not ask how, I was too busy watching the demo). At the mill it goes through a secondary crusher (pictured below) which is about the size that we used in my mineral processing lab at Queen's in second year. The fine ore is then placed in a ball mill approximately .75 meter by 1.5 meters (just a little smaller than the one that will be going into Morelos). From here the ground ore is placed in a large mortar and pestle (see picture below) the pestle is about 2 meters in circumference and about half a meter deep. Side note: I am not even sure which piece is the pestle and which is the mortar as I have never in my professional career had to know. Anyway the ground ore is placed in the pestle, mixed with water and mercury. The gold will be recovered using the Hg amalgamation process. I had heard of this but had never seen it done. The mercury/ore/water slurry is then worked by human power for about 8 hours. The labour to power the mortar/pestle is supplied by the miner's family, a good way to keep your kids busy. The pestle has a 4" x 6" plank attached to the top about 1.5 meters long, the worker stands on this and rocks back and forth. If it was not for the danger of the mercury I suggested that we contact Good Life about a new exercise machine with a gold by product. The slurry is then drained and filtered through a silk cloth, the excess mercury recovered and the product is a gold/mercury amalgamate. The amalgamate is then fired to burn off the mercury and gold produced. I asked about the use of cyanide but the fellow considered cyanide more dangerous than mercury. The miner then gets whatever the recovered gold is worth (dependent on purity) and miller keeps the tailings. Once the miller has sufficient tailings on hand he sends it out to a real mill for processing as the process only recovers about 60%. I would suggest there is an opportunity here for larger scale mining, the average grade I was told was 1 to 2 grams of gold recovered (paid to the miner) for each 60 kg delivered. This is equivalent to a grade of 16 gpt to 32 gpt and that is after recovery. Pretty impressive grades! When I asked about there being large scale mining I was told the main issue was water, but there has to be more to it. We should really learn Spanish.
After the mill tour we were done our pre-arranged tours for the day but there was an optional dune-buggy/sand boarding excursion we could sign up for, so we did. First lunch with Carol and Peter an Australian who had joined the tour. Peter is 56 and 2 months into a 2 year adventure circling the globe. He had an air conditioner sales and install business back in Oz which he had sold 6 months ago, packed his life into 2 backpacks and took a flight to Argentina. After lunch he was off to Ica (about 160 kms north of Nazca) for a wine and dune buggy tour. We wished him luck and headed back to the hotel.
At 2:30 our driver arrived to pick us up in our 8 seater dune buggy for our culture/adventure tour. It would turn out to be an excellent excursion. There were 5 others on the excursion, a family of 5 from Scotland. The kids were aged 8, 5 and 3, they had been 2 weeks in Peru. Quite an interesting choice for a family holiday with young children. We climbed in, me in the back with the parents and Julie up in the front with the driver and we were off. First stop was to pick up safety glasses for the two youngest children, something definitely required as we were to find out, and then off to a visit to our 1st cultural stop.
Stop 1 - Nazca people u/g aqua duct. After a 15 min drive across very dry farm land we arrived at a small oasis. It was a large dug well with rock walls which allowed access to the water table about 4 meters down. The Scottish kids had a great time climbing around the place.
Stop 2 - Mud Brick Temple, Partial restored. Another 15 min drive took us to the site of an early ceremonial temple. The site was partially restored by the Peruvian Government. It was fairly neat driving up to it as it had the look of a big sand castle. By this time the afternoon wind had started, which was blowing around 30 knots. This happens every day, so if you consider looking into mining in the area you should consider wind power to generate your power requirements.
Stop 3 - Another Nazca Gravesite. Another interesting experience, pockmarked by grave robbers, a small ring with skulls, other bones, hair and cotton and then on the other side of the track a mummy of a small adult/older child.
As our driver said to me "that now finish culture tour, to adventure" and we were off, his english is not the best but he can drive. The adventure part consisted of us driving another 30 mins to the sand dunes. During the drive we had the pleasure of being chased by two dogs along a dry river bed. They did very well keeping up with us for about 400 meters. Then we reached the sand dunes. For those of you that have not been in or seen dunes they are very impressive almost majestic in a way. We screamed around the dunes like we were on a roller coaster for about 15 mins. The whole time the Scottish kids are laughing and screaming it was a blast. Dawson was up front with the driver and Julie at the back so we had a good feel for the ride. The driver was funny with short english phases as we plunged over each dune lips things "god help us" and "holy shit". We then stopped at the top of a dune and it was time for the sand boarding. The boards are similar to snow boards but home made with velco bindings. Our guide then demonstrated the three riding positions - sitting, lying down and standing. He was out of breath after the three demonstration. The most important thing he told us was to wax our boards after every ride. Julie took 3 rides and Dawson 2.5 (one was an stand up that ended half way down the dune), the kids kept going it was just like a good day of tobboging but a little hotter. The whole time the wind is blowing so you can image how much sand we had on us. Finally the driver annouced we were heading off the "small" hill to the "big" so we gathered up the boards and kids and jumped on board the buggy. He then asked if we wanted more boarding or more driving. The answer was a unamisous more driving so we had a second ride driving up and down the dunes.
It was now well after 5 and time to start heading back. After 15 minutes of driving we stopped to watch the sunset, a very nice display by nature. From here it was a 20 minute ride back to Nazca in the dark with our driver wearing his sun glasses the whole time.
Once back at hotel we had a shower to get rid of the sand and out for dinner. Dinner was alright but some what disappointing as we had selected the restaurant based on look and that they take visa. unfortunately we were told they accepted visa however that was just to get us in the door. When we checked with the waitress ordering we found out the real answer was no so we had to stay within the budget of our reminding Sols which was not much.
Off to bed at 10.
Photo Notes:
1) Map of flight route pointing out 12 Nazca line drawings
2) Dawson in plane
3) The "Astronaut" or is it an Alien waving goodbye
4) The "Monkey" The spiral tail is the baseis for Peru's stylized writing that looks kind of like "@eru"
5) The pockmarked landscape at Nazca grave site. Note bones lying on surface
6) a pair of 1500 year old mummies
7) a close up of mummy
8) Julie holding a 1500 year old vase
9) The new "Nazca" potter
10) The gold milling demo c/w scale models
11) the secondary crusher
12) Mortar and pestle - note plank on top
13) Mortar and pestle in operation - if you look close you will see two people working separate mortars
14) The tailing after the mercury recovery, this is what the miller takes for payment
15) The start of the dune buggy ride. Julie in the front seat.
16) Stop 1 - Nazca aqueduct
17) Stop 2 - Julie and Dawson in front of Nazca temple
18) Stop 3 - Nazca grave site
19) Sand dunes
20) Our driver - He kept his sunglasses on well past dark
21) Julie and Dawson on the dunes
22, 23, & 24) Julie and Dawson sand boarding
25) Sunset with a 30 knot wind
Cheers
Dawson and Julie
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