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Wilson's World Tour
Arrived at the bus station at about 1630, we had pre booked a hostel from lonely planet at random, looked across the road and there it was !
Nazca is an odd town, surviving purely due to the lines, it reminded us of a small two bit town in a western movie, one road in one road out.
We had been told about there being two options to view the lines, one from the air where you could see them all and the other from a lookout tower where you can only see two. Mrs Wilson convinced me to splurge $40 and we booked the flight for 0800 in the morning. We got picked up and taken to airport, they showed a film which explained the various theories on the lines, ranging from a crazy American (you dont say) explaining their prescence by UFO activity !. The most sensible theory seems to be that they were offerings to the gods for rain, as scientist have now proved there was a forty year drought. As the drought got worse, so the figures and lines got bigger.
We were then ready to fly. for some reason they took one look at Sam and me and said we couldnt fly together, something about excess bagage and un balancing the plane !!. Sams plane went before mine, as it was about to charge down the runway it stalled ! Dont worry said the pilot, went to go again and it stalled again ! The pilot seemed convinced it would fix itself but thankfully he went back to their base where they fixed it.
From the air the figures were amazing, there so big and equally impressive are the dead straight lines stretch for seemingly miles across the plane. It would be an engineering feat to recreate them today with all the modern surveying equipment we now have, but they had nothing except a huge dessire to be blessed by the gods and recieve a little rain. Hard to imagine for us english folk !
The flight lasted 30 minutes and was worth every penny. Sam was a little green when she came back but nothing that a good breakfast didnt sort out.
We then booked a bus to take us to Cusco, 14 hours of fun ! It left at 2000, Sam had been warned that due to the altitude and the constant hairpin bends everyone would be sick, not one to break tradition she chunderd, but thankfully in the toilet not in my lap ! We got to Cusco at 0930 the next day two hours ahead of schedule, absolutley exhausted but with a real feeling of anticipation to what lay ahead.
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