The most damaging theory about the Nazca lines came seven years earlier, when Erik Von Daniken published Chariots of the Gods, in which he proposed that the pampa was part of an extra-terrestrial landing strip – an idea that Reiche discarded impatiently. Von Daniken’s book drew thousands of visitors to the lines, but newcomers in search of the drawings set out across the pampa on motorcycles, four-wheel-drive vehicles and even horses, leaving inerasable marks of their visits. Now it is illegal to drive or even walk on the pampa – Reiche used the profits from her book – Mystery on the Desert to pay four guards to keep a constant…