The Nazca Desert is a high plateau in Southern Peru more than 50 miles across. The area is now home to some of the most enigmatic, mysterious drawings, amazingly well preserved from when they were made more than 2000 years ago. They are thought to have been made by the combined effort of three different civilisations living in Peru around the time – the Paracas people (900-200 BC), the Nazca people (200BC-600AD and settlers from Ayacucho after that.

There are over 300 figures in the desert, made so simply by making shallow furrows in the sandy gravel to expose the lighter colours underneath. The fact that even someone just walking over them could easily destroy the pictures shows how remarkable it is that they still exist.

There’s a spider, a dog, a whale, a wierd sort of bird, a condor, a man that has a bubble thing round his head (hence the name given – “the astronaut”) lots of lines and shapes, and my favourite one, a really cute monkey with a spiral tail.

There are so many theories as to where they came from and what the motivations behind them were – some, like the German mathematician Maria Reiche, think that they were made along the same lines as Stonehenge – as a calender that marked astronomical movements and the coming of the solstices. Some thought they were in honour of the Gods, and that walking the lines was an act of prayer and meditation. Some thought that it has something to do with the fact that there are few periods in history when there were more solar eclipses. Some think it marks ancient underground water flows. Some think that the fact that they were made so accurately proves the existence of a hugely advanced civilisation on earth which has since died out. And some think they were made by visiting aliens who left them as landing strips. This is made more tempting when you see the “astronaut”.

To see them you get on a tiny tiny plane – only big enough for five people. The “runway” at the “airport” by the lines with these itsy planes is quite a shock, and really it’s a bit scarey. To let you see the lines properly, the pilot (who really does wear very smart clothes with eppallettes reminiscent of a posh Naval officer from here!) will swing the plane round so it’s almost on its side so you can look almost straight down, out of your window, to see the lines. This makes you feel pretty sick, and even more so when he does the same for the people on the other side so they can see the lines too. I wasn’t as bad as the person sat behind me who got very very ill, bless him.

Seeing the lines from above makes you realise two things – firstly the huge scale of them. They are enourmous – 300 feet across some of them. And also, how precise they are. How they were made without sophisicated measuring equipment and any views from above to admire their work is such a mystery.