22nd -29th Feb

On Tuesday 22nd I travelled the 3 hours along the coast to Trujillo and then out to the beach town of Huanchaco. There were ruins to visit nearby and it had been recommended. In my first few days there I spent quite a lot of time looking at options for getting south to Patagonia, eventually buying a flight as the money for the flight would be money well spent because otherwise the north to south of Chile journey would take at least 4 days and nights worth of buses! I will be coming back up through Chile and Argentina by bus so it made the most sense. The price for an earlier date increased overnight so I booked one for 6th March. This meant I'd have a bit longer than I thought- I felt a bit bad about not going off visiting another part of Peru but decided it would end up being too much of a rush and decided to make the most of staying in nice hostel which cost only £3.50 a night! I spent some time at the beach but also spent time just relaxing at the hostel. Met some nice people at the hostel and ate regularly at the vegetarian restaurant that made lovely falafels! The hostel did nice breakfasts and I got into the habit of having a lazy morning and late breakfast, nice! On the Saturday night there was a carnival parade in Huanchaco so I got to see a parade! I was pleased about this as I thought I had missed it all the weekend before. It was film-themed and had some music and dancing. Afterwards I wanted to go dancing but the club cost 30 soles (£7) which seemed a lot so we didn't go. On the Sunday we wandered along to the pier and there was live music going on which was fun- it was a busy, lively Sunday afternoon.

A bit of culture! I spent Saturday daytime visiting the nearby ruins with Irene, a Dutch girl from my dorm. We first went to 'Chan Chan' which is next to the sea and was really interesting. We hired a guide between us to get more info, which was worth doing. You can only visit one of the palaces but there were 9, and you can imagine how huge it must have been originally and you can see the vast area of ruins. It was built around AD1300 by the Chimú people. At the height of the the Chimú empire it had about 10,000 structures and 100,000 people lived there. You can visit the Tschudi complex. Shell was mixed in with mud to build which demonstrated the Chimú people's relationship with the sea. Also many of the reliefs around the complex are sea related such as pelicans, tides, fish. Once again I wish I'd written my blog sooner as I have forgotten some of the info he told us! :-( The moon was their God as the moon was far more important than the sun- he said they believed it was more important as it can be seen day and night, therefore there are also moon reliefs in the complex, as well as shapes like a net showing the link to fishing. After the Chan Chan ruins we went to the museum then got public transport into Trujillo and on to the Moche temples 'las Huacas del Sol y de la Luna'. The Huaca del Sol is Peru's largest pre-Colombian structure with 140 million adobe bricks used to build it. No excavation work has taken place there yet but it has started at the Huaca de la Luna, where you can go inside some of the temple on a guided tour. Work is still going on but you can already see some of the friezes, reliefs and murals which are really impressive and colourful designs. You can see an exterior wall too which was also impressive with the original designs. The sites were well worth a visit.

I decided to leave on Thurs 1st to go to Arequipa which would be a long bus journey- first 9 hours (by day) to Lima, then 15 hours (by night) to Arequipa with a few hours wait inbetween. The buses here, well, especially for long distances, are pretty posh and very different to Ecuador. The price is a lot different too- no longer $1/hour as in Ecuador. My 2 tickets cost $90 total, but I was on the best of the best buses (Cruzero Suite) as I had to choose that type for when I wanted to travel. On this bus you get a reclining leather chair with leg rest and plenty of leg room, pillow and blanket, hostess service (like on a plane!), meals, films……all very different to what I have been used to! I kind of miss the craziness of bus travel in Ecuador, for example, the bus terminals, where you could just turn up and get buses, everyone shouting out destinations. Putting your bag under yourself but here (well on my journies so far anyway) you have to check your bag in- this initially made me worry about whether or not my bag would be put on the bus! Ha ha It's actually a lot more secure in Peru. The bus companies also often have separate bus terminals so everything is a lot calmer! They also filmed everyone in their seat on the bus "for security". I wasn't really looking forward to 24 hours bus ride but actually it went quite quickly with watching films and reading and sleeping- I think I got about 7 hours sleep overnight but not sure why they have to wake you up for breakfast at 7am when you are going to be on there until 1pm! In Arequipa I bought my next bus ticket for getting to Tacna on the Peru-Chile border- this time I chose to pay the extra 6 soles (about£1.50) to get the same seats (semi-cama) on the first floor of the bus, the second floor seats are not quite as nice but cost nearly the same!

In Arequipa I got the two things done that I needed to do- got my zip mended on my big backpack which was a big relief and a bargain at 75p and got a new pair of jeans, also taken up for 75p! I didn't do anything else as I was ill (only my second stomach upset of the trip so I'm not doing too badly) - it was a good job I had already visited Arequipa in 2009.

I would have liked a bit longer in Peru but as I think have already said (I've lost track!) I need/want to get down to Patagonia before winter there so need to make my way south now…..next stop Chile!