Chauchilla Cemetery — Attraction in Vista Alegre

This site is highly underrated in my opinion. As many people, we only went to Nazca to take a flight over the lines. However, as we had a few more hours until our bus, we looked for other things to do in Nazca. We did not expect much but found the cemetery (and the Cantalloc Aqueducts, which are usually done together in tours) fascinating and were surprised to be almost the only tourists there, in high season. A similar site in Europe would probably be filled with tourists.

The cemetery itself takes less than an hour to visit but is a bit far away from the Nazca city center by car, and requires to go through a long gravel road. It is recommended to take a tour as there won't be any taxi there to bring you back. It takes less than an hour to visit, but count another one hour and a half of car to go there and come back to Nazca (if this is too long for your schedule, the aqueduct is probably a better choice as it is closer and a bit more unique).

The airline arranged our tour with a local guide, but it is really easy to find a guide in Nazca. They initially asked for 80 soles per person for a 3-4 hours tour for four persons (incl. the Aqueduct, the cemetery and a few other sights on the way) but we negotiated the price down to 50 soles per person. The tours usually don't include the entry tickets of the Aqueduct (10 soles per person) and of the cemetery (8 soles per person) that you can buy at...

Chauchilla cemetery. I personally never witnessed mummies before so this was an extremely unique encounter.

As you arrive in what can only be described as the middle of nowhere, hundreds of tombs are hidden below your feet and under the sand.

Gravediggers in the past ransacked these tombs and stole valuable items like jewellery that usually got buried with the deceased. Pottery and bones are scattered around and in the tombs. It's believed that the grave site contains pre-hispanic remains but we were also told that the Ica Chicha (pre incan civilization dating back 1000 years) are found here.

Some of the mummies are very well preserved. You can even see neck muscles on some of them. It's an eerie, morbid location where you stare death in it's face.

If you're lucky, you might spot burying owls in this...

This place is very cool!! It's crazy how you can pretty much walk on the trails they have marked and on both sides are bones and pieces of bones all over the place. It's hard to believe that a place like this even exists. When we went we were the only people there, we had the whole place to ourselves to explore. I believe we were there for about an hour, I wouldn't see why needing to be there any longer would be the case. It was very hot that day, and each of the main tombs had a shaded area to keep them preserved a little better. I would recommend this to anyone that wants a unique sightseeing trip. Its not for...