Blogs from Chiclayo, Lambayeque, Peru, South America

We ended up in Santa Marianita following decision to engage in more volunteering and making contact with a guest house called The Donkey Den on HelpX. Attracted by the promise of abundant cats and dogs, we made our way from Quito and via Manta to the small fishing village. In recent years it seems to have gained international fame for two key reasons: it is one of the best spots in the region for kitesurfing, and it is one of the best spots in the region for buying land and building property. The tourist industry is steady there as illustrated by the numerous hotels along the beach front, of which The Donkey Den is one, whilst the local community lives in a village about 15 minutes walk from the cluster of resorts. As volunteers the duties ... read more

DAY 37 Another hot & lazy start to the day by the beach before re-packing for a lunch time trip back to the Tumbes bus station for another 8 hour trip down to our next stop, Chiclayo. 3 hrs later the bus went past our hostel, an unfortunate waste of time but just the way the bus system works here. Back on the Pan American Hwy in a very comfortable Double decker bus mainly following the coast with the blue Pacific on one side and vary bare desert hills on the other. Initially past some very basic villages each with a flotilla of boats anchored offshore. Pelicans were doing what they were meant to be doing, dive bombing for food, instead of like the ones at home who seem to sit around tourist areas waiting for ... read more

Chiclayo may not be the prettiest place in Peru but it has some good things going for it and you can spend a happy weekend there. For me the highlight has to be the Museum Tumbas Reales del Senor de Sipan, the climate and the friendly people – it’s ‘the city of friendship’ no less. To set the scene, Chiclayo is large commercial desert city (the country’s fourth most populous - 650,000 inhabitants) in northern Peru. There are plenty of hotels and restaurants, cinemas, malls and good transport links. It’s 17 km from the coast and is sunny for most of the year. I stayed there with my boyfriend for two weekends as it was a convenient meeting point between Peru (where he lives) and Ecuador (where I was living – well, only a 24 hour ... read more

3-5th May ’13 Chiclayo Our first full day here we didn’t do much as Howard’s bowels were causing him grief! We did manage to get to the main square without being mown down (a minor miracle), Howard finally got a haircut and I have never known someone take so much pride in his work – Juan was a perfectionist, he must have been in the military!, we managed to sort out and book ourselves on a tour for the next day and found the bus station we needed to book our tickets for Trujillo on Sunday, which after a long time in a queue we did. The next day was fantastic we were booked on The Sipan Tour with Moche Tours and the guide spoke excellent English and hearing him switch between Spanish and English was ... read more

An unplanned, unexpected - and hence thoroughly unwelcome - overnight bus journey whisks us westwards from Chachapoyas, dumping us most unceremoniously in the coastal city of Chiclayo at the ever-so-slightly-inconvenient hour of five in the morning. We've been given dire warnings by various people in our first few days in Peru about wandering around cities after dark - "you'll be robbed", said one lady outright - so feel rather uneasy stumbling out of the bus all bleary eyed into Chiclayo's morning fog. A quick phone call later and a sympathetic hotel owner has agreed to let us have what one might call an "early check-in". Disaster averted - it was that or wait, exhausted, in the bus terminal for several hours (with a distinctly unhappy Alex for company!)... Peru's northern coast was, in centuries past, home ... read more