The Nazca Lines - May 4-6

I hate mornings, especially wake up calls at 3am. My bus leaves the station at 4:15am. Did I say I hate mornings. Lee is staying in Lima, warm and comfy in bed. In the end, but bus was great. I had a nice big first class seat reclining almost to level for all of $28 for a seven hour ride. I slept through most of it, peering out at the desert from time to time. I arrived in the town of Nazca and walked a few blocks to my hotel. As soon as I checked in, I muttered “I want to see the line”. The desk organizes a flight for 3pm. I am now relieved. At 2:30pm they call me and say they do not have enough people for the flight, do I want to reschedule or head to the airport to see if they can find two more people. Needless to say, I was on my way to the airport pronto. They found the two people and we boarded the small plane holding six people including the pilot. They handed out 13 gallon plastic bags, indicating there was plenty of room if we got sick. The flight started off bouncy, but soon stabilized. The woman next me clutched her bag but avoided using it (although she thought about it). We then started passing the figures in the sand. The pilot turned the plane so the right windows faced down and then repeated the gesture for the left. The figures were very clear (we were lucky, some days they are hard to spot). I had a grin ear-to-ear the whole time. I am pretty lucky in this life.
           The figures are a combination of human accomplishment and a natural wonder. They are older than 0 BC. No one knows how the people built these figures and lines without modern technology, some the line stretch for miles straight as an arrow. I believe “with the help of aliens” runs high on the list of possible explanations. The desert is one of the driest places on earth, it is rainless and the heat baked into the sand, releases at night, saving the ground from the wind. You can see stream channels that have not seen rain for 2000 years, but are perfectly preserved. Even the car tracks from 1920’s can easily be seen. Everything is perfectly preserved, when normally the lines would have been erased quickly by the elements.