Northern Peru - Chiclayo, Trujillo & Huaraz

Hi all and we hope you had a very Merry Christmas!
It's been a while since our last blog, but then again we've both suffered from the effects of too much of the local water or food inhabitants. So although we spent a further week or so heading south through Ecuador and some really interesting towns and beautiful places such as Vilcabamba, we simply never took out the camera or did any activities unless we could remain within a minute´s hobble of a toilet. :-)

In Cuenca, however, we did see more of the many parades and celebrations that seemingly every town is throwing at this time of the year. Luckily they passed under our hostal window so we could still fulfill the above baño requirements. They really love their marching bands down here, whether it is cute kids holding drums bigger than themselves, massive shiny military outfits, or just 3 guys in street clothes and playing what must be the most dilapidated and appropriately sounding wind instruments. They also really love their xylophones and the tunes are surprisingly catchy!



We hopped on an 8-hour bus that went from Ecuador to Peru via Macara that very conveniently included all the border crossing formalities. We also met up with a friendly English guy, Jonathan, on that bus, and decided to check out northern Peru together.

Chiclayo - Tucume and Sipan
We spent a day checking out the vast remains at Tucume which were built over 1000 years ago. Upon first sight, the structures look like random piles of eroding dirt, but upon closer inspection you easily see the shapes of the adobe pyramids, platform mounds, and walls of the ancient citadels. Not only numerous (there were 26 at this one site), they are also big with one measuring over 700m long, 280m wide and over 30 meters high (see the little guy in the foreground for scale). They were kind of eerie looming out of the surrounding desert plain, and it is astounding to think how much work went into making them. We also visited a world class museum (Tumbes Reales de Sipan) which housed the amazing artifacts (pottery and jewelry) from the Moche Culture, from the royal tombs located within a similar crumbling pyramid - well worth a visit if you get the chance.



Trujillo
This turned out to be really pleasant city, full of friendly people and great colourful colonial architecture. We visited a few of the old 'Casas' which have these grand entrances onto the streets (enormous doors) and beautiful internal courtyards. There was also no shortage of cathedrals, or taxis (which is also the case for every town in Peru!) Sometimes it really borders on ridiculous as the streets are literally jammed with empty yellow or white taxis as they inch their way forward with no people on board. The taxis also LOVE to honk: they honk to get your attention as they drive past hoping for a fare, will usually honk at girls, honk at each other to say hi, and that doesn't even count the pissed off honking when things are not moving fast enough, so you can imagine it's kind of always there in the background!



The other nice part about Trujillo was that in the evening they closed down many central streets which brought out all the street performers (and helped bring some relief from the taxi symphony). The central plaza ended up being the place to be, as it was full of locals out strolling, listening to carols (visiting Mormons who were in town), taking photos with fake windmills (yeah we have no idea either?) and just enjoying the Christmas decorations and lights that they throw over every building and tree in sight - and who knew they had an "Australian" Christmas tree all the way over here in Peru (¡Feliz Navidad!)!



Chan Chan
Another site sporting adobe ruins, this one had a different look, consisting mainly of walls in various states of disrepair. This was the largest adobe city in the world with the walls and structures spreading over an area of 28 square kms! Built for nine successive Chimu kings, and with walls as high as 9 meters it was definitely impressive. The areas that they have excavated have revealed many interesting and really well preserved molded decorations of fish and other animals. Situated in the middle of a dry, barren coastal desert, you really have to appreciate the irrigation skills they must have wielded to grow crops and keep their water aquifers full even until today.



Also in the vicinity of Chan Chan were the really ornate ruins of Huaca Arco Iris and the coastal town of Huanchaco. We got some great ceviche (raw fish and squid marinated in lemon juice, herbs and onions etc - tasty!) and also checked out the local fishing "boats". They are made out of Tortora reeds and can apparently be ridden through the waves like a surfboard. Although they really need to be dried out after each use, as we learned from another traveller who rode one that was still damp and it handled as you'd expect a bunch of soggy reeds too i.e. no stability at all (but then again being a 5ft nothing Peruvian guy probably helps as well!). The other point of interest was the up close and personal encounter with the famous Peruvian hairless dogs. They are weird to say the least and as Ben said "it feels like patting an dusty old man´s head or an elephant" .



Huaraz - Christmas in the mountains
Saying goodbye to Johnathan we took a night bus to Huaraz and finally caught up with the wet season that is to be expected for this time of year in the mountains (it hadn't really started yet in Ecuador). This town is the trekking Mecca of Peru and there are some seriously massive and beautiful, snow covered mountains about (the largest Huascaran is 6768m\22200ft). Or at least that is what the postcards made it look like, as with the clouds and clockwork afternoon rain we really only caught brief glances - but when we did they were beautiful!

Although feeling "under the weather" for the entire Christmas period, we stayed at a fantastic mountain lodge up at ~3800m (www.thewayinn.com) run by an English couple. It was a great time with a really friendly bunch of people. A nice touch was that we got to share a tasty turkey Christmas dinner, even if we couldn't eat that much. :-)



We are now currently in Lima, and will pick up Ben's dad Norm from the airport tonight. He´s joining us for the next few weeks as we check out Southern Peru and Bolivia. Have a really happy new years where ever this finds you and hope to catch up or hear from you all soon,
Love Karen and Ben