The Daily Poem

THE GENERATIONS

The generations come and come

With something new for everyone

The next three-ringed compendium

    On how to make the diamond oil,

To grease the wheel that makes us run.

The generations go and go

And with them everything they know;

The little things like how to grow

    A fruitful seed in fertile soil.

Tomorrow reaps, today we sow.

D. Edgar Lamp

The Daily Poem - 404

Quinatin Stanza

Nazca, Peru

Lat: -14.84, Long: -74.94

JOURNAL: The WalkOn Inn Hostel

We were up at 0600 ready for our taxi ride to the Nazca Lines.  But we soon realized that things were going to be in slow motion.  Jose at the front desk called the taxi and we were on our way by 0800.  We were scheduled for a 0900 flight.  But at the airport they said since there were only three of, they wanted to wait for a pair of Japanese girls who were scheduled for 1000.  They arrived, and we waited some more.  Then, as if readying us for boarding, they moved us to an enclosed area by the door that lead out onto the tarmac.  We sat and made conversation as our Dramamines started taking affect.  There was Rita from a town near Zurich, Switerland.  There was Alex from San Jose who was in Lima on business with a company called NavTech.  And the two Japanese girls on holiday.  Soon our eyes were growing heavy.  Then other people were let into the boarding area.  We were told the plane was refueling.  After another hour I started to wonder, and couldn't help remember what Martin had told us about the three plane crashes in the past five years, the most recent one in October of last year.  But he assured us that there had been a big government crackdown on safety since then.  The last crash had been caused by the pilot having a heart attack, now they required two pilots instead of one, just in case one drops dead over the monkey.  They used to be very lax about maintenance records; now the guidelines were strictly enforced.  In fact, five airline companies had been shut down.  And better yet, AeroParacas, the airline we had chosen had never had a crash.  All good to know, but still, what was taking so long?  I got up and asked for an explanation.  A woman was dispatched to inquire, but didn't return.  About ten minutes later I went back to the security officer at the boarding entrance and he let me walk back through.  I walked over to the AeroParacas desk and explained how we had been up since 0600 and it was now noon.  Suddenly there was a flurry of activity and we were ushered out the door by two pilots.  Rita thanked me for pushing them as we walked toward the plane.  I wasn't so sure.  I was the first to climb in and sat immediately behind the pilot.  He didn't seem happy.  Maybe he's thinking, "I"ll show them a ride they won't soon forget!"  But with two Dramaines onboard, my brain just resigned itself to whatever fate awaited me.  I smiled at the pilots and said, "Muchas gracias" and "Muy Bueno" wanting them to know I harbored no ill-will toward them as professional airmen.  A moment later, we were rumbling down the runway and, after what took longer than usual, took flight.  The sky was clear except for some high clouds.  The wind was slight.  We flew along smoothly for about 5 minutes until suddenly the fun began.  For the next 20 minutes it was sharp turn after sharp turn, first to the right, then to the left, wings tilting earthward or heavenward depending on the side you were on.  We were all wearing headphones to buffer the noise of the engine, so it was difficult to hear when he pointed to the oversized postcard that showed our flight path and said, "There's the Whale."  We all put our cameras to the window and snapped away.  There wasn't a moment to zoom in or adjust the frame, it was look out the window, find the geoglyph, try to maintain your sense of balance and adventure, point and shoot.  We saw the Whale, the Triangles, the Trapezoids, the Astronaut, the Monkey, the Dog, the Condor, the Spider, and the Hummingbird, which was my favorite.  After about 10 minutes into this voyage of discovery, this flight of archeological fancy, I had had enough.  They we saw the Alcatraz which means Flamingo I think, the Parrot, the Hands, the Tree, and then it was suddenly over.  "FInished." the co-pilot announced and we were headed back.  I was feeling a bit airsick and discovered a little vent above the pilot's door and pointed it at my face.  That helped.  Once on the ground we took pictures with the pilot and said our goodbyes.  Mimi's first words were, "Back already?!"  and I knew then that we had been gone a lot longer in our heads than we had in our bodies.  It was good to be back on terra firma.  Back at the hostel I went straing to bed and slept like a flightless cormorant on a Galapagos rock for several hours.  How sweet it was.

Mimi wanted to see the Lines from the viewing tower, so she woke me in time to go with her on a 3-hour tour of Palpa with it's nine geoglyphs that purportedly pre-date the Nazca Lines, a museum about a nine-fingered lady who spent her life mapping the Lines.  And by the way, the Monkey only has nine fingers.  Very strange indeed.  Then we went to the viewing tower were we got good views of the Hands and the Tree.  Finally we ended up on a small hill overlooking the whole region and watched the sunset over the lunar landscape of Nazca.  A truly mysterious and wonderful place. 

At 2130, we boarded the Cruz Del Sur bus bound for Cusco.  Four hundred miles of winding mountain roads lay ahead.  At the station, we met a terrific family from Austrailia: father Michael, mother Leticia, two daughters Shawna and Gemma. Shawna had been a guiding tours in Peru for the past 15 months, and her parents and little sister had come to visit her here and accompany her home. For a 25 year old, she was amazingly very well traveled.  she had been to all seven continents, and had visited Base Camp Everest.  Her mother, Leticia is a nursing director of a home care and hospice service, and her sister Gemma, aged 20, is a nursing student. Shawna was talkative and animated; reminded me of Kim.  And Gemma's understated confidence and gentleness reminded me of Ellie.  I was suddenly homesick.

Got to Abancay around seven.

Michael was really sick. Leticia had been up with him all night throwing up in the stairwell. Probably a bag case of motion sickness. The road from Nazca to Cusco is horrendously curvy. And on the second floor of the bus, we really felt the sway.

I kept my eyes closed and tried to sleep. After the ferries in the Carribean and ship in the Galapagos, at least this wasn’t so bad. I focused on the forward motion and finally fell asleep.

The Daily Poet