The Cahuachi Pyramids & Cantalloc Aqueducts

 November 15^th, 2021

After the flight over the Nazca Lines, the tour guide asked whether I was interested in an afternoon tour to some pyramids, a cemetery and the aqueducts for 35 (I assumed Soles, but it later turned out to be US dollars, about four times the price).  Why not?  I haven’t got much else to do and the young American couple who had taken a video of me paragliding in Huacachina said that they had liked it.  Three other tourists, a Colombian woman named Malena with her adult son Jose and a young woman Vanessa from Mexico City joined me as we hopped in a car with our tour guide Reynaldo.

We drove about five kilometers from the airport on the main road before turning off for another 10-12 kilometers on a gravel road before arriving at the Cahuachi Pyramids.  One other car of tourists was just leaving but after that we were the only ones there.  Being the only English speaker in our group, most of the tour was in Spanish.  That’s okay because I have to admit that I don’t really dig archaeological digs.  Supposedly this was a major ceremonial spot for the Nazca people between 1-500 AD.  It is thought that there are many more smaller pyramids in the area but no one seems to be bothered in uncovering them (this was thought to be the main and biggest one).

 Approaching the pyramids:

At least the mask gives good sun protection:

The people lived out there, a little away from the pyramids:

On our drive back towards Nazca, we pulled over at a supposed cemetery.  I say “supposed” as really it was just some old bones lying around but it was quite interesting in a macabre kinda way.  Along with sun bleached skulls, femurs, vertebrae, and other bones were mats of hair and even strips of clothing…all supposedly from 1500-2000 years ago.  I was surprised that they hadn’t all been stolen as they were just lying around in a field.

A Catholic cemetary nearby.  Reminded me of Spaghetti Westerns:

We finished our tour with a stop at the Cantalloc Aqueducts which we flew over during the Nazca Lines flight.  They were built about 1500 years ago and still function today.  It is a series of holes lined with stones with a stream running along the bottom that comes from springs in the mountains.  The further upstream you go, the deeper the hole.  The guide told us that occasionally the tunnels had to be cleaned so they were accessed by these holes.  Someone had to crawl through the tunnels to perform the maintenance.  It all seemed like a lot of effort but obviously it worked, and still works today.

Vanessa venturing down on aqueduct:

Me in one of the deepest ones:

Someone's house next door:

The tour was alright in general, a good way to kill an afternoon in Nazca.  As I mentioned earlier, I was a bit surprised at the cost, $35 USD each so with 4 of us the guide made pretty good dough for 2 hours of work, especially considering we’re in Peru but oh well, that happens sometimes when travelling.