Not for the faint of heart... or stomach

I am back!! Oh man, what an adventure! We had a great great great time! And it is also really nice to be back in Arequipa.

The adventure began in Arequipa. From there we bussed to Nasca, and from there we bussed to Paracas, which is quite close to Pisco.

After leaving on Tuesdsay evening, we slept on the bus and got arrived in Nasca on Wednesday morning. Once in Nasca, we eventually made it to the airport where the planes take off for the flights over the Nasca Lines. (Getting to the airport might have involved a bit of an adventure - we took a pit stop at an illegitimate travel agency before getting to the airport where the legitimate companies were located. But, thanks to the wisdom that God gave us and the cooperation among our group that He provided, we identified his scheme and got to the place where we were supposed to be.)

This is the bus on which we slept!!

We spent about five hours at the airport waiting for our flight. During this time we played some games and talked and wandered around. I should also clarify that the airport is... really little. It makes the Lansing Airport look really big. But we just relaxed there for a little while, ate some snacks (maybe that was a bad idea...) and sang some songs and played UNO and wrote some poems and sat around.

Here's Sydney, Amy, and Fuller as we waited in the airport!

This is the airport.

Eventually it was our turn to go on a plane!!! Amy and I were the heaviest, so we sat in the back of the plane. Sydney and Emily sat ahead of us, and we had two pilots. This was a little plane. We could not have fit another person in there. And the view from the air was absolutely gorgeous!!! Really, it was amazing! And we saw the Nasca Lines!!! They are pretty cool. They are so big that they can only be seen from planes, but they were made a really long time ago by people who didn't have planes. Think about that for a while. They were neat. One of my short term goals is to learn more about them. I want to read up on them this week.

Another thing that I should really mention about the Nasca Lines is that the plane is very very shakey. Oh man. Every time we fly over one of the designs, the plane tips sideways about 90 degrees so that you can see the designs right out the window. And the plane does a lot of really sharp turns and frequently falls and rises and jerks all over. It was a 30 minute flight, and that is a very very good thing, because all four of us were feeling pretty motion sick. But, I'm the only one who threw up!! Yes, I threw up over the Nasca Lines!! It was... terribly unpleasant. But don't worry - it was still worth it. And it didn't prevent me from taking pictures!!




See?? That's the hummingbird!!

 


This is the plane we flew in (and that's our pilot there, too!!).

We had to wear this ear thingies. The pilots talked to us through them, telling us where to look for the figures.

It's Sydney and Emily!!

See? It was a beautiful view up there!!!

After landing and regaining the color in my face, we took a taxi back to Nasca. We hung out in the Plaza de Armas for a bit, walked around and found some ice cream to eat, and then headed back to the bus station and got back on the bus for a three hour trip to Paracas.

This is the Plaze de Armas in Nasca.

I will continue this epic tomorrow. For now, suffice it to say that it was a great great time! And I am also quite enjoying being back in Arequipa with mi familia.