Until the 1930s, Nazca was like any other small Peruvian town, with no claim to fame except that you had to cross one of the world’s driest deserts to reach from Lima. But that desert has since drawn thousands to this tiny, sun-bleached colonial town, which was devastated by an earthquake in 1996. The pampa or plain, north o the city has become one of the greatest scientific mysteries in the Americas. The Nazca lines are a series of drawings of animals, geometric figures and birds ranging up to 300 meters in size, scratched on to the arid crust of the desert and preserved for about 2000 years, owing to…