Pilot in training

June 14th
Today my Belgium friends, Margreet and Michael, and I woke up early to take a morning flight over the nazca lines. We reserved a 4 seater prop plane to fly us over the awesome, mind-boggling lines. I've been on a handful of small aircraft in my day but nothing quite this tiny. The flight would be a total of 30 min and we would see dozens of lines and figures mysteriously carved into the ground below. We arrived at the airport teamed with excitment. Hopped on the plane and away we went. Now...I've never been sick on a plane ever before, but, the flight was literally 30 min of an intense rollercoaster ride - twisting back and forth up and down. I came very close to loosing it. If I had eaten breakfast before the flight I would have for sure lost it. During the rocky landing, pilot #1 (new pilot) was flying the plane and for whatever reason lost confidence and so pilot #2 took over the plane to land it. After touchdown, Pilot #2 turned to pilot #1 and said "see...it's easy!"  
Despite the nausating flight, the lines were pretty amazing! You can't see the patterns at all from the ground, they are only visible from the sky (which is pretty incredible if you think about it). There are lots of rumors and hypothesizes about who, how, and why the lines got created. Still to this day no-one knows for sure. One theory is that the lines were created around 900BC to 600AD by the Nazca and Paracas indians by removing sun-darkening stones from the desert surface to expose the lighter soil below. Some believe that the lines were an astronomical calendar, ritual walkways conected to a water or fertility cult, giant running tracks, representations of dreams, or extraterrestrial landing sites. Today, archeologists are still discovering human skulls around the lines. 
After our flight, we spent the rest of the day walking around nazca city. It's kinda a run down barrio but is under alot of construction to revamp and beautify the city. 
Later tonight we will take a 10 bus ride to arrive in the morning at a city called Arequipa, the second largest city in Peru. It's a colonial city that sits in the valley of 2 majestic and active volcanoes.
I'm looking forward to the new city, but not excited about a 10 hour bus ride.
 alas...if I must...I must!