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Peru was the next destination on my South American jaunt and our first stop was a few days along the coast to appreciate some Peruvian beaches. It was going to be a relaxing 4-day start to our intensive few weeks in Peru, culminating of course in The Inca trail - something that I was both highly excited and extremely nervous about.
But to get anywhere on this continent - You have to travel vast distances. This is something I am slowly starting to appreciate (and that is saying a lot given my home country), but needs must and I am getting very familiar with the inner workings of the South American public transport system. To start my journey into Peru - I had to get there first. Exhaustion doing nothing is suddenly taking on a completely new meaning for me after spending 11 hours on a bus to reach my first Peruvian city of Mancora.
The bus ride from Cuenca to the Peruvian Border was like a rollercoaster - Our maniac driver was enjoying driving like a rally car driver around the very sharp bends on the roads we were travelling on. Our group occupied the first 13 seats
of the bus, so I had the joy of having sacks of grain, banana stalks and other things stacked in the front along side our aisles and under our feet. I ended up spending half the journey making sure that the bananas stayed on their stalks and the sacks stayed in their place instead of flying down the stairs and out the front door as the bus swayed from side to side.
Once at the border, we said goodbye to Diego and hello to our new tour leader, Claire who would be taking us all the way into Bolivia. Walking across the border into Peru was uneventful, filled with the usual street vendors selling anything from batteries to live chickens. We crossed the border and piled into a beat up Toyota minivan that would take us the remaining 3 hours of our journey. 14 people squashed into a very hot & sweaty minivan that should really have held only 10 very small people (think - Midgets!) did not make for a very pleasant ride, but was made marginally better with the help of some very trashing 80’s music sung very off-key by most of the occupants.
Tired, hot,
hungry, & highly volatile at the end of my journey, all I wanted to do was to off load by backpack, have a shower and go in search of food. We all ended up in a Mexican restaurant along the beach with plenty of alcohol & good food to boost the spirits and provide enough energy to continue on into the night at a local bar with some very trashy Spanish-Techno music & giant Jenga blocks for further amusement.
Morning brought about a completely new perspective - I was in Peru! I was on a beach! What more did I need to do? The answer to that was - Nothing! I walked along the beach, sat and watched the world go by drinking pisco sours, wandered around the local markets and went swimming in the hotel pool. In the evening, I went out with the group in search of salsa bars to practice my newly acquired skills - but did not get very far, given that most bars & restaurants are closed on Mondays in Mancora. Oh well! Nothing beats 2-4-1 at a local bar serving highly potent passionfruit pisco sours for AUD 6.00 - The night ended very
badly for some! Ouch!
The beach village of Huanchacho near the town of Trujillo was our next beach town along the Peruvian Coast, another 8 hours away from Mancora and getting us further & further south into Peru. Right now all we are doing is travelling for one day, resting for another & travelling again the next - Just so that we can cover the distance to get into the heart of Peru in ample time.
Having had no cultural activity during the last few days, In Trujillo we went to visit some pre-Inca ruins called ‘Chan Chan’ built by the local Chimu cultures some time around AD 1300. This site once formed the largest pre-Columbian city in the Americans & the largest adobe city in the world. Walking the length of road from the Pan-American highway to the entrance of the site is like walking around a desert - Vast tracks of sand as far as the eye can see, stretching out forever, the only difference being that in the distance you could hear the thunder of waves crashing along the beach.
We spent some time walking around the ruins, together with some other sites near
Trujillo, with a local guide before heading back to Huanchacho for some lunch and a free afternoon. Lunch soon ended with a bar hop along the beachfront in search of the best pisco sours we could find. What more did you want from the day?
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