Huanchaco

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I thought I would leave Trujillo in its own little blog entry rather than combine it with Huanchaco as they are both such different places, and the Santa Cruz trek was a long old read before that!

So we arrived at Casa Suiza, which is a really nice, sociable hostel with a cool little roof terrace. We checked-in, dumped our backpacks in our dorm and swiftly changed into bikinis (well, not James, obviously) and hit the beach. It was so nice to enjoy some relaxing beach time after the trek, and Huanchaco is good for surfing, so we chilled out on the beach watching the surfers and enjoying the rays. That night we met up with some Aussies that Tristan (who was now in Lima) knew in Huanchaco, but were quite tired after the night of the magic cricket so had an early night.

Dana and I got up separately the following morning pretty early to go for walks on the beach, then headed to the mercado to stock up on fruit, avocado, cheese and bread to make our own breakfasts and lunches to save a bit of money. Back at the hostel, James had risen and was having the hostel breakfast which looked amazing! But, not to be deterred, we went up to the roof terrace to make some fruit, granola and yogurt. Up there, we met Melissa, George and Steve (all Americans) who we later ended up travelling to Mancora with. We all went to the beach, the boys doing some surf classes, and us girls relaxing on the beach to work on our tans! It was another lovely relaxing day, and we went for dinner with the Aussies again before coming back to the hostel and playing drinking games with lots of people on the roof. After getting suitably sloshed on rum, we hit a club on the beach where a live reggae band were playing. It was a good night, nice to be out dancing with girls again, into the early hours! Reminiscent of Buenos Aires, even. I felt like I had really met people I could totally be myself with and was looking forward to spending more time with them in Huanchaco.

The following morning James got up early to go to Chan Chan, a historical site that lies between Huanchaco and Trujillo. Dana and I politely refused his invitation, enjoying a much-needed lie-in after coming back in the early hours from the club. We treated ourselves to the great hostel breakfast, before making our way to the beach with Melissa. On the way we popped into a kiosk to get some fruit and water and bumped into a girl called Emma, who oddly enough, comes from Loughton! Serendipity strikes again! She joined us on the beach, so we had a lovely girly time, joined by the boys later on. That night was a repetition of the night before - drinking games on the terrace followed by a night out at a new hostel opening party on the seafront. The night was a fairly blurry one, but a good one all the same! For some reason, I got it into my head that I wanted to sleep in the hammock on the roof, but luckily James followed me up and made me come back to the dorm, which I was very glad of in the morning! I would most likely have been eaten alive by mosquitos.

The thing with Huanchaco is that you can spend a lot of time there no actually doing very much! The beach is great with good surf, the hostels are nice, and there are loads of cheap little seafood places on the seafront. Not to mention all the little craft and jewellery shops, plus the nightlife is good as well! We were enjoying having some chill out time, not getting up too early, spending the day on the beach, followed by a good night out. I had one bad incident in Huanchaco, when I stood on a sea urchin in the shallows of the sea. It was unbelievably painful, and I had to sit in a most uncompromising position on the sand with one leg over the other, head bent at the sole of my foot, with Dana´s penknife, tweezers and a safety pin, prising out the spines from my foot and toes! It was not the best way to spend an afternoon!

Sadly our time in Huanchaco was coming to an end. It was definitely one of my favourite places I visited in Peru, for the whole ambience of the place. James headed off to Chiclayo for some more history, so we parted ways. The rest of us decided to travel in a group of five up to Mancora (Dana, Melissa, Steve, George and myself), where we ended up finding what Steve christened ´The Spaceship Mansion´ to stay in...but that is a different blog altogether!

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