Chauchillas Cemetery

You'll be picked up at your hotel in Nazca at the agreed upon time and then we'll head south of the city to the cemetery, about a 30km trip through the desert. Discovered in the 1920s, this city of the dead by the Poroma riverbed was used from around 200-800AD

During the tour we'll gain priceless insight into the ancient Nazca culture, observing thousand year old mummies who, thanks to a painted resin used during burial rites and the arid desert climate, are so well-preserved that they still retain their hair and skin. Valuables were sacked by tomb raiders, but the mummies and other archeological artifacts  were left behind, such as the bright multicolored ceramics with surrealistic designs for which the Nazca are famed.

After touring the necropolis we'll return to Nazca and visit a local artisan maintaining the Nazca pottery tradition and learn more about how the intricate pieces were and are produced. We'll complete our excursion with a stop to watch local miners still using a traditional colonial technique involving mortar, water, and quicksilver to extract gold from the earth for artisanal purposes.

This tour has a duration of 3 hours