The ancient ruins surrounding Trujillo

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I spent my 20th birthday in a beachside town named Huanchaco, just 20 minutes outside of Trujillo. It was a strange feeling having a birthday with no friends or family around you. It didn't really feel like a birthday at all. I wonder how Christmas will feel?

Huanchaco was pleasant enough there, but the sun just didn't want to show itself. The beach was more like a grey british seaside town! Nonetheless we saw some great sights in the area. We visited the ancient ruins of Chan Chan which are dated back around 2000 years to the Chimu people. The ruins were absolutely enormous! Palaces in England are like tiny dots in comparison. Just the function room was as big as the whole area of a normal British castle. I was totally blown away by the scale of it all.

We had a guide which cost 25 soles (£5) and she was fantastic. She told us all about the history as we went around and I really think that it would have been quite a boring day without her, because otherwise you're just wandering around looking at carvings in stone and not really understanding anything about it. With her help I was really able to appreciate it. Although it was rather funny how it sounded like she'd rehearsed everything she had to say and didn't really understand English, as she struggled to understand many questions we asked! She was very sweet though, and even asked if she could have her picture taken with us at the end!

The next day we visited a similar ruin called Huaca de la luna (Huaca of the moon). Huaca just means sacred place, and this particular sacred place was once home to the Moche people, who lived in Peru just before the Chimu people. Here archeologists are preserving the huaca rather than restoring it. Thus everything we saw was original and I'm astounded that we were able to still see the colours thousands of years later. Again this was fascinating, with help from the free guide we had who was witty and enthusiastic. I thoroughly recommend visiting both of these places if you find yourself in Trujillo or the surrounding area.

We were also educated on the peruvian hairless dog here, which many people think is ugly, but I actually thought it was quite cute! Especially the puppy one we spotted in a petshop! Their body temperature is around 40 degrees so apparently they've been historically used as footwarmers in the night! Haha

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