The Nausea of the Nazca Lines

So, here's how my morning yesterday went:

I'm totally deceiving you.

Yay! Oh man, I am so excited to go on this overflight of the Nazca Lines! Wow! Ever since I was about 8 years old and saw an re-run of "In Search Of" on A&E about Ancient Astronauts I have been, like, totally excited to come and see these 2000 year old monolithic drawings in person!

Boletas con vomitendo.

Oh, wicked! Even the tickets for the dinky little airfield are cool! Maria Reiche, a German mathematician who did a ton of research on the lines, was like, awesome!

Only 2 fatal crashes last year!

Cool! Look at the little plane! I can't wait to ride in there!

Super twisty arrow funtimes!

Amazing! Here is a little map showing the route we're gonna take. I can't wait to see the astronaut and the hummingbird and the spider! Wow!

Nope. Nothin' wrong here.

Ready, S? Excited!?

Gravol makes the things all slow motion.

I sure am! Woo! Let's go! I'm sure glad I'm stoned out of my head on preventative Gravol for the motion sickness some people report! Woo! Take off!

Wait.

Something is wrong. I don't... I don't feel so good.

The last photo I managed to take before passing the camera to S.

But that's ok, because look at how beautiful the mountains are! Desert! And mountains.... and.

OK. Seriously. What the #@*%?

Do you have to - urp - do you have to swerve and dip so much, Pilot? *moan* I'm serious... I'm serious, "Pilot"!

ooooooolooooo (makes sounds in own head like dog about to vomit)

Deep breath, Dear. Deep fucking breath now. You will not - I repeat - NOT - vomit into that undignified plastic bag. Suck. it. up.

I promise it's there.

Ok, look where? For the *swoon* what? The hummingbird? Ok. Under the wing, where you keep dipping the plane toward. *angry sick face*

Is...is it hot in here? Ok - seriously - where is the bird? All I see is sand. Oh - I see it.

It's. Hm. It's a lot less vivid than I expected. But then again, I am having a hard time focusing. And breathing.

I'm gonna... I'm gonna have to close my eyes now. Just poke me when we see more lines.

.....what's that smell? Oh. Oh S. Poor S. Shoulda kept your eyes closed.

********

After a few hours in bed to recover from the worst motion sickness ever, we decided to try to get more out of our Nazca Lines experience by visiting the Antonini Museum. The wee museum has a 2000 year old (still working) aqueduct running through its back garden, a little oasis in the desert.

So what's the opposite of phallic? O'Keefic?

Inside the museum were displays on the Nazca people, the 2000 year old culture that constructed the lines, probably because of aliens, or drugs. Or drug dealing aliens. Or y'know, Jesus. They also practiced trepanation, human sacrifice and mummification - sometimes all on the same person.

This is actually me after the flight.

But best of all, a scale model of the Lines themselves, viewed from atop a small platform. See, if I hadn't told you that both the photo at the top of this post and the one directly below weren't real I could have posted all of these as being from our 30 minute "plane ride of puke" and you wouldn't have known better.

Told you I was deceiving you.

And frankly, as it's been about 36 hours and my stomach still hasn't settled fully, I kind of wish that that had been my plan all along.

A flight over the Nazca Lines. Amazing. Mystical. Enchanting.

Revolting.