Here was a day that I ticked off another item on my bucket list. After a delayed start that afforded us time to do some souvenir shopping, the clouds finally cleared enough for our little plane to take off. I calmed the nerves with some coca tea (which honestly tasted just like green tea) and scoffed a couple of travel sickness pills. The pilot was friendly and handed us a route map of the 30 minute flight. He reminded us that the wings are our pointers, so look to where he dips the wings to see the geoglyphs! Then up we went.
I think I was only 10 minutes in to it when the sweats started and my window fogged up. "Ooh look! There's the whale!" Ok - click, click, click. Photos are the only sane reminder of that less than sane time, wiping the sweat from my face, my neck, my glasses, un-fogging my window, hyperventilating. "And now we'll loop around so the other side can see it!"
But for all the unpleasantness, of which it turns out I wasn't the only one subjected to it, it was glorious to see my favourites - the spider, the monkey, the hummingbird. We looped and banked over 15 glyphs in 30 minutes. My shirt was soaked through when we landed, but I didn't spew! In fact no one did, which was a miracle. Or maybe the miracle was the fact that 91 year old Lennard strolls out of the plane like it never left the ground! (I found out later that he spent some time in the Air Force doing reconnaissance missions for the bombers in WWII).
So after recovering our senses, it wasn't long before we started the drive back to Paracas for the night. I might leave this next part of the tale for another time, as I've completely run out of steam, having spent a restless night previously reading about resonant frequencies to levitate stone, and sedating tonight's brain with pisco sours and mojitos. Zzzz.
