Northern Peru - beeping horns

10 hours bus journey to Piura in coastal Northern Peru, via Macara/La Tina border crossing. Eventful so not too painful. We met 2 Irish guys - probably about 50 - clearly a couple but had cooked up some story about how they were going to meet their wives in Buenos Aires - odd! They provided us with beer and biscuits after the bus broke down (loud bang, puncture, resulting chaos for a couple of hours whilst the driver and conductor argued about how best to change a tyre) and it became clear we would be arriving in Piura very late with empty stomachs.

We spent much of the journey fretting about how we had lost/never had our Ecuadorian Migration exit cards. People had told us the Ecuadorian immigration control was particularly sticky on the Peruvian border, and we had tried to sort it out in Vilcabamba but the Policia de Migration always seemed to be out of the office! About 3 hours through there was a roadblock and an intimidating uniformed guy got on the bus, looked closely at everyone and barked ‘carta’ at Laurent and then at the Irish guys. This could only mean that he wanted our Migration exit card and our hearts were thudding as we passed him our passports with ‘documents’ conspicuously missing. To our surprise he smiled, slapped Laurent on the shoulder and wished us ‘suerte’. They didn’t give a damn at the border either - we think the supposedly difficult crossing must be on the coast at Tumbes, which Peru stole from Ecuador when no-one was looking during WW2. Wish we hadn’t got concerned for nothing and had paid attention instead to the swarm of mosquitos that descended on us at immigration control resulting in loads of painful bites, including on the soles of Martha’s feet. OUCH! Arrived at dodgy bus station very late with no Peruvian dineiro - very stressful, then to rubbish hostal with no sheets, towels or hot water and lots of noise, but a bed at least! We learnt that Peruvians beep their horns a lot. All night. A lot.

Piura is not all that, so shame is was our landing place in Peru. Visited the town - quite pretty, and interesting to see everyone crossing themselves when walking past the Cathedral. Inside was a man with walkman headphones lying alongside a casement containing a Jesus in his Agony statue, pressing his hand against the glass and telling us what Jesus was saying. Since then we have seen many people pressing their hands against various items within the churches of Peru - odd.

Left Piura a few hours later for Chiclayo - another 3 hours on a bus. A far more bustling and welcoming town, though still with the signature car horns constantly beeping. Peruvians are really friendly! Was tricky to find a hotel and the hotel bods were all genuinely saddened by our plight and offering to call hotels out of our Lonely Planet for us, apologizing profusely and shaking our hands. Chiclayo is a great town - there is some kind of military schools procession on which is really impressive and a brass band, which M found incongruous (what, no Pan Pipes?!) but fun! The market sold absolutely everything under the sun, and the shaman’s market had interesting herbs and a monkey eating apples.

Decided to visit Lambayeque, where there are some world class museums boasting Mochica artefacts and archeological evidence from around Chiclayo. We squeezed into a Colectivo - one of the minibuses bursting with people which we had gasped at out of our coach window - with M hanging out of the window. When we saw one crash into a moto-taxi rickshaw on our arrival, were pleased we didn’t take one of those instead. The Museo National Tumbes Reales de Sipan was fantastic and we both count it as one of the best museums we have ever been to. There is a vast amount of mainly 4th century stuff from the tomb of the Senor de Sipan and from the Mochica community in nearby Sipan - incredible and so well explained, lit etc. Took a moto-taxi rickshaw back and wished we hadn’t - no mirrors and pretty scary. Bumped into one of our Galapagos boatmates, Dutch guy Irun in an internet café and the 3 of us went for dinner before our night bus to Lima.

The 12 hour night bus to Lima was far better than expected - reclining seats, a couple of films and about 4 hours sleep. Had read and heard horror stories about night buses on this route (accidents, kidnappings by baddies posing as passengers, hijacks etc - joy!) but we were all closely filmed boarding the bus which kind of restored confidence. Pretty tired on arrival in Lima and allowed ourselves to be bundled into non-official taxi to our youth hostel - whoops! But all OK. Treated ourselves to fantastic Cebiche (this place won an award for best Cebiche in Peru!) and decent wine and enjoyed walking around central Lima, the wooden casements and balconies a feature, San Francisco monastery etc - our prejudices about this being a big polluted noisy city were in part dispelled. It is friendly and buzzy and refreshingly cosmopolitan (M disgusted Loz by drinking Starbucks! M pointed out that his favourite - Inca Cola, is made by Coca Cola…)

Later on, both agreed on Pisco Sours in the old Bolivar Hotel, where some crazy women from Puerto Maldonado flocked around us wanted their photo taken with the gringa (that’s Martha), and nearly swooned when they saw the gringo, following Martha to the loo to ask all about their lives back home. Time to leave. A taxi driver, Carlos, picks us up and says he noticed us gringos about town earlier. Now we are kind of looking forward to getting somewhere where there are a few more of us pasty types! We befriend Carlos and he is taking us to the airport tomorrow to go to Iquitos - Northern Peruvian jungle town - exciting next installment!

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