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Published: April 26th 2006
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The Whale
I will list the pictures in the order that we spotted them, which may lead to the picture quality deteriorating further down as the plane ride took its toll. Well, I have had a rather rough couple days since we left the trail and at times have wished for the comfort that only altitude sickness can bring. Currently, we are in Nazca to view the famous (or infamous?) Nazca Lines. Nobody really knows what they are or were for but everyone has a guess, from an astronomical calender to alien landing site. My opinion? It was just boring in Nazca, so they wanted something to do. That was our opinion last night, and it seems applicable if you assume the lines did not exist.
So, Lima was little to no fun for me. We arrived at the bus station on time, full of food from our big lunch and ready for the long, curvy ride back to the big city. My food, unfortunately, would not actually make it to the solid ground of the city, as a mixture between possible food poisoning and the circuitous route conspired to rid me of my burden in the bathroom lavatory. This continued for my first twelve hours in the city, though a bed in any city would have worked just we well. By the time I was finished, I figured I might
The Astronaut
Or at least that is the name we have given to it, as Astronauts would not be something that the Nazcan people would be familiar with. . .or were they? as well just watch some movies. So, while Sara and Jill found a vegetarian restaurant and got a pedicure, I watched several movies of varying quality. We had purchased tickets to Nazca for the following day, leaving at noon, so was on a self imposed hunger strike to ensure, stomach wise, a safe journey. We watch a pirated version of the Chronicles of Narnia, and headed to bed.
The following day consisted mostly of packing and testing the stability of my stomach. A few "donuts", more like cookies, went down well enough to get me through the day until we had a chance for a real meal, and we made our bus with plenty of time to spare. Unfortunately, time was a major concern of the bus company, Cruz del Sur, as we took a very haphazard and slow route through Lima, turning a 6 hour journey into an 8 hour ride. We finally arrived to Nazca, which appeared to have a giant tire fire, or equivalent, burning on the route into town. The late arrival meant we needed to work fast to determine our plans for the following day.
We headed to our hostel, the Alegria II.
The Monkey
At this point, the airplane was starting to get to me, though fortunately I took copious pictures and a few turned out. The II signifies lesser, which certainly applied as the toilet was lacking both paper and a seat, and the mattress was foam only, so that the center of you body sank in a foot while the rest floated on top. My back was suffering in the morning, but at $3 per person we suffered for our savings. Next order of business: get a flight. The only good way to view the lines is from a plane, as they were not discovered until the 1920s, after the Panamerican Highway was running through one of the objects! We asked at our hostel and were in for some bad news, as Nazca, and Peru in general, is suffering from a shortage of airline fuel. He said that no planes would be going, but that there were plenty of other activities in Nazca. Yeah, that we couldn´t care less about! Anyway, we headed to dinner, hungry but dejected. More bad news, as the local Hare Krisna vegetarian restaurant was closed, so we headed to the restaurant the sounded the most gringo friendly, the Grilled Chiken. OK, so they were missing the c, but we got the idea. After a nice dinner, we headed to
The Condor
There were several designs similar to this one, with the other two being a hummingbird and the other the Alcatraz, which translates at Booby or Gannett. a tour agent to see if the story might change. Much to our surprise, it did, and for $60 per person, $15 more than usual, they could accomodate us first thing in the morning. We though this might be a bit suspect, but he promised that we would get our money back if we didn´t go so we decided to risk it. A good rule of thumb is that any company in the guidebook will not do you wrong, as the next guidebook would have a not recommended asterisk next to the company. This one came highly recommended. We asked at one more company and they indicated they would be flying as well, so we felt pretty good. Early to bed, as we would be early to risk for what we hoped would be a 7 am flight.
The following day, we awoke to find the usual cloudless sky in the Nazca desert. In addition, our driver was already waiting so we all hurried to the car and drowsily headed to the airport (to clarify we were drowsy, not the driver). The planes were all in good condition and appeared in operating condition, with several taking off while we
The Spider
An easy one, but many of these seem out of place in the driest climate in the world, the Atacama desert. waited our turn. We were finally loaded into a 6 passenger plane, including pilot, and roared off the runway at about 7:50 am for a 35-45 minute flight. Though the lines were really amazing (in the shapes of a whale, monkey, condor, hummingbird, and you can look up the rest) this was the first time any of us had experienced more than 1 G (gravity) as our pilot would circle tightly over each geoglyph. Though Sara and I both took dramamine, I began to fear that it might not be enough and eyed the plastic bag in the seat back with contempt. I made it, but just barely. After a safe landing, we watched a movie on Maria Reiche who devoted her life to studying the lines. The odd thing about dramamine is that it seems to exchange motion sickness for sleeping sickness, and Sara and I struggled to keep our eyes open. We headed back to our hostel, and promptly slept off the effects.
We awoke just prior to the noon checkout, packed and stored our bags, and headed to lunch at a reasonable good, and very cheap, Chinese restaurant, though Sara´s dish was more 50% vegetable and
The Hummingbird
Similar in appearance to the condor, though probably my favorite due to the greater contrast between the dark rocks and light soil. 50% bitter, inedible to any of us. Following lunch, we headed to our current world wide web checkpoint, and have spent a couple of hours perusing the news of the world. If our luck holds out, we should reach Cusco some time tomorrow morning with our bus leaving Nazca at 8 pm. Until then.
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