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Published: September 9th 2011
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Many people will tell you bad things about the Tumbes crossing. Have a quick scan through the blogs and you would swear you need to pack your kevlar and oil up your AK, coz it's gonna be a bumpy ride. From the Yanks telling the stories you figure you're leaving the green zone or something. Admittedly, the bustling metropolis of Tumbes looked more than a touch dodgy at night – and it was always a night crossing on the bus. The yellow light from the sodium vapour lamps at the Ecuadorian side faded quickly as the bus made its way slowly through the deserted, darkened buildings of the no-man's land. Vacant windows, crappy tags, and precarioulsy poised broken windows said “Bienvenidos a Perú” to a tired traveller spaced out on Dramamine.
But it was easy, dead easy. We booked the bus ticket straight through with CIFA. The company changed buses – which involved a truly odd swap in the middle of the night on a darkened Pan-american – but it was arranged with a minimum of fuss and gave the opportunity for a quick toilet break. The few dodgy money changers at the Peruvian border office were mostly asleep. Only
one raised a heavy eyelid, and managed a lazy but hopeful “cambio...?” as we walked past, like a dog giving a couple of lazy tail thumps on a hot summers day.
In Piura we swapped to ITTSA. The office was pretty much next door to the CIFA stop. We didn't really manage to find anything to eat, but it really didn't matter. It was the flashest bus I've ever been on, better than most planes, with a great breakfast and huge seats. They even provided us with drinking yoghurt, which was good for Klaire's esophagophalus; injured in a tragic Doxycycline incident.
The hotel we had booked – Hotel San Martin – was this time exactly as described in the Lonely Planet; huge. It was basic, but comfortable and cheap (even if it was twice as expensive as mentioned in the LP). There was a very lovely water feature in the foyer which featured lots of plastic plants, concrete and no water.
There was hot water as such, although the standard electric heater unit had seen better decades. The water was hot, but you had to be very careful to avoid touching anything metal while showering. Better than
a double shot of espresso, really, to wake you up on a cool morning.
Trujillo was a beautiful city and, although we had seen a lot of those, it had some pretty trick design elements – the Spanish style birdcages over the windows had been made quite a thing and added something quirky to the place. The pastel paint special that had been on at the local Bunnings a couple of years back meant that most of the buildings were all one colour. The effect wasn't as bad as it might sound – the town was very photogenic.
Peru was in election mode big time by now, with all sorts of people out getting voters registered. Good looking girls, blokes dressed as giant ballot papers. Like Australia, voting was compulsory in Peru. I continued my survey of Peruvian taxi drivers about the upcoming election. In Trujillo the young guy knew nothing about politics. Upon realising I could speak Spanish he turned down hie terrible pop music and asked where we were from. His second question was about what football federation Australia was in, and how we normally did at World Cups. I had a good chat about that
with him, but when pressed on the politics issue he said the name of the first poster we passed.
The next taxi driver said everyone loved Toledo, some said Keiko (the daughter of Fujimori). Still another said PPK. Clearly no one had any idea. At least there was more than two real options.
Not far up the road is the fishing village of Huanchaco and on the way you go past the ruins of Chan Chan. These are a set of pre Incan ruins – basically a set of temples and residences. Unfortunately by the time we passed it resembled not much more than a construction site. I guess that's what happens when you build your ancient civilisation out of mud bricks and it rains. We gave it a miss.
Huanchaco, though, wasn't bad for a day trip. This is the place they have the reed boats, and fantastic seafood. We found a
colectivo going our way and jumped on. You can also learn to surf, and there were a bunch of tourists doing just that. This included a bunch of cringeworthy Aussies who had obviously decided they could learn in Peru and go back to whatever
place with shiny people they came from and pretend they'd always known how.
There was also a bride on a horse. Not sure why, but then again, why not. There was a groom too. Maybe for the tourists, maybe a truly tacky wedding shoot. The blokes on their reed surf skis seemed to also be for the tourists. They were supposed to be fishing, but simply seemed to be paddling about the bay catching waves.
We got a taxi back to Trujillo, and it turned out top be cheaper than all of us on the bus - and passed by Chan Chan again. We didn't go in this time either.
Our first Peruvian city of this trip had been a good pick.
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Slowfeet
Slowfeet
This is a Good Idea
Brings it all back doing it this way. Trujillo was a good city.