Friday, 18th December, Nazca: ancient mysteries and puking Yanks
We leave La Calera with heavy hearts. I’ve spent a couple of days feeling distinctly under the weather, and what a beautiful place to be nursed back to health. But it’s time to man up, pack up and hit the road. It’s HOT HOT HOT. And dusty. And when sun is blazing, suncream is on and the environment is dusty, our faces become FILTHY. Dust and pollution stick to the suncream layer and we finish the ride looking like one of Fegan’s street children. I particularly like Mike’s clown eyebrows, myself.
I’m still not feeling right, so Mike transports a sickly wife down to Nazca, site of the famous lines. I go straight to bed for the afternoon, Mike goes to take a flight over the barren landscape to see the ancient and mysterious line drawings from the air.
Mike here, hello. Sadly I can’t make Alanna write up my experience of the Nazca lines, as she wasn’t there. It was a fairly rapid affair (walked out of the hotel, bought a ticket from a man, who drove me to the airport, got straight on a plane – flew about for 15 mins, then back to the hotel). The lines themselves are worth every minute of the hour of my life (and $25) that I spent on the excursion. There’s nothing that can be said in a second class blog like this (my bit anyway, Alanna’s writing is smashing…) that begins to justify the enormity and some would argue the stupidity of the project – drawing huge images in the sand that can only be seen from a plane. Some have speculated that they are around 7,000 years old, some have speculated that “it’s the aliens that did it” (see spooky “Spaceman” line to the right). But generally everyone is stumped by the matter – including the German archaelogist Maria Reiche, who devoted her life to understand the mystery. She has a statue of her in Nazca’s town square, (which looks a little like Eric Morecambe in drag, looking out to sea) so it wasn’t a complete waste of her energies. 
So good for her.
But really the highlight of the trip, that no tour operator can guarantee, is a vomming American student. She did know before we left that she could get a little sea-sick, so it came as no surprise after the geoglyph, “The Hand” that she reached for a plastic bag, and began wretching like a cat with a fur ball. I think the trouble with the incident is that I haven’t grown up, and that far from feeling sorry for her (who was sweaty profusely by the time we touched down), I had a hard time stiffling the giggles, and wishing that that was a bit more space in the light aircraft, so that I could film her better. Here’s a still of the back of her head. You’ll have to imagine the noise…
That night we meet Graham, Sue (from North Yorkshire, riding 2 up on a BMW 1200GS) and Richard (a bearded aussie, riding a V-strom top to bottom) – all bikers doing the Panamerican too – who we ended up spending Christmas and New Year with.
Oh, and here’s the monkey I saw below. See it? And on the right is the one from Wikipedia, that’s a bit clearer…
