Doing Lines In Peru.

 We were feelin' good. We were flyin' high (or were about to). 

 

But just as we thought we couldn't get much higher... This happened.

A bad trip? No, just airsickness. It turns out that in order to give everybody on the plane the best possible view of the Nazca lines, Crazy Ivan (for those who remember "The Hunt for Red October"), our pilot, banks low and hard and often over each of the geoglyphs. It was intense even for me, but for O, it was nearly a ride on the Vomit Comet.

I'm proud to report, however, that although the barf bag was raised to her lips, she held her breakfast down.

To fully appreciate the experience, you have to imagine the entire plane (other than us, Crazy Ivan, and his copilot) filled with Japanese tourists. Every time we'd circle a geoglyph, the copilot would scream its name repeatedly in three different languages: "Mono! Mono! Mono! Saru! Saru! Saru! Monkey! Monkey! Monkey! And every time he'd say it in Japanese, all the Japanese would say "Saru! Saru!" to each other.

And boy, was the experience worth it! Oddly enough, the glyphs are quite clear to the naked eye, they were very hard to make out in the photos I took. I had to bump the contrast quite a bit to get them to show up.

The Condor

The Spider

The Monkey

The Astronaut

The Hummingbird

There are over 700 geoglyphs on the Nazca plain. Most are geometric figures. But no one really knows why they were made.

 

But seeing this poster makes me think it has something to do about the male energy. More proof that misterhood is powerful.

 

We decided to fly the Nazca lines out of Ica, the capital of southern Peru, in the middle of the southern Peruvian desert. It reminded us of the pictures we've seen of Iraq; hot after cool, coastal Lima  (low 80s), and dusty from the sand blowing off the seas of dunes that surround it.

An oasis in an ocean of sand.



We took a four-and-a-half hour bus ride down the coast from Lima to get to Ica. The landscape is much like that of Baja California.

Another oasis. Our hotel in Ica, Hotel Villa Jasmine was a lovely spot.

What we saw of Ica was not very impressive. The hotel was located in a well-guarded enclave about a ten-minute cab ride from the town center.

There were some old, pretty buildings at the edge of the dunes.

But even within the guarded area many of the houses had electrical fences on top of high walls. Some of the more upscale houses even had armed security outside.

Even the garbage is put out on raised platforms to discourage pilfering by roaming dogs.

Or it's burned in a designated dumping ground.



Still, it was a lovely time.

Next, life at 8,000 feet in Arequipa.

P.