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The day I left the Galapagos Island was completely dedicated to travel to Peru. It started with a two hour speedboat trip at 6am, after that a bus, ferry and bus combination to the airport, then a flight, then another bus to the bus terminal from which I took a bus to the border town between Ecuador and Peru. From there I took yet another bus towards a town in Peru. Unfortunately I didn’t realize that the immigration office for Ecuador is actually 4km before the border town and the border line. So when I showed up at the Peruvian immigration they told me to go back and get the stamp. Normally not such a big deal but by then it was midnight. One of the guys who worked there jumped with me in a mototaxi (half motorbike half rickshaw), then into a cap to the Ecuadorian immigration place. The way back was the same just in reverse. Luckily there was another bus at 1.30am going to the same town I wanted to go in Peru where I arrived at 5.30am. The problem was that I didn’t want to stay in this town so I hopped on another bus and travelled another 3 hours to Chiclayo.
Who said that travelling is relaxing?
One of the main reasons to come to Chiclayo is to see the pyramids of
Sipán or better the artefacts found in graves in the pyramids.
Sipán was hailed as the most important archaeological find in Peru in the last 50 years (basically since Machupicchu) when it was discovered in 1987. Discovered is probably not the right word. A local archaeologist was wondering back then why so many new artefacts suddenly appeared on the market and after carefully interviewing a few people found out that grave robbers found graves in pyramids belonging to a pre Inca civilization. Soon after the archaeologists took over the site, which the grave robbers didn’t like very much. The police even had to shoot one of them during the early hay days. The problem was later solved by hiring the now ex grave robbers and when they hired them as members of the excavation team.
The pyramids themselves look today more like earthen hills and are not that spectacular as the stuff they found in it. Probably not a big surprise that the pyramids do not look like new after 1500 years and remembering that they have been build out of mud bricks. All the items found are now housed in one of the best museums I’ve seen so far. The museum and the exhibits are very spectacular but you are not allowed to take pics… Have a look at the website (Spanish only) of the museum
http://www.tumbasreales.org/ or this site
http://www.go2peru.com/cix_foto1.htm to see some pictures.
I left Chiclayo after two days taking a night bus to Chachapoyas which lies near the supposedly spectacular ruins of Kuélap. The bus ride started well and I was lucky as there was over 2 cm between my knees and the seat in front of me. My luck changed when the bus broke down after 30 minutes. The seats in the replacement bus weren’t spaced as generously and now I had absolutely no room left between my knee and the front seat. I had to ask the guy in front of me not to recline as it was not possible anyway and every try to do it anyway really hurt. Luckily for me and him it was only a 12 hour bus ride.
Anyway I arrived safe and tired and went on the hunt for a one day tour to Kuélap. As it goes with a cunning plan it is quickly changed and I got “talked into” doing a 6 day trek to various archaeological sites around the area. So far it is just me and another German guy going on the trek.
So look forward to another blog entry about that trek soon and don’t expect any emails until the 13th...
This is where
Peru is
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