Advertisement
Published: August 10th 2009
Edit Blog Post
Monday morning we rolled into Trujillo and whilst we didn't have a booking at a hostel we knew we wanted to stay just outside Trujillo at a town on the coast called Huanchaco. So we agreed a fare with the taxi driver and set off however he soon pulled over at a petrol station and wanted us to pay the fare in advance (to pay for his petrol) so we duly coughed up much to our chagrin as he wasn't having us only pay half the fare. Anyway we duly set off down the road again however came across a bus protest so he refused to go any further and turned around. We gave him an address for a hostel in Trujillo and I then tried to argue with him in broken Spanish that he should refund some of our fare as we hadn't gone very far. Unfortunately I didn't get very far with the argument as my Spanish isn't good enough to give a reasoned argument and he was a prat (that is the least offensive name I can think of!!).
Anyway we got dropped off at our hostel and we spent the rest of the day relaxing and
wandering around the town. It transpired that the local drivers were protesting over wages however it was only to last the one day. That night Sharon and I went out in search of food and bumped into two Peruvian guys and one said he was a chef at a local bar and so they took us there. When there we had a couple of drinks and were joined by another Peruvian guy, a Peruvian girl and a Canadian guy who had been staying with the girl. We had a good time however we ended up leaving that bar under a cloud due to being ripped off by one of the original guys we had been talking to and the one who worked at the bar its a long and depressing story that I do not care to relive.....
Tuesday morning and we decided we were going to do a day tour that took in the ruins of Huaca de la Luna, Huaca del Sol and Chan Chan. So we booked ourselves on a organised trip. We started off by visiting the Huaca de la Luna and Huaca del Sol sights. At the present time you are only able to
go inside the Huaca de la Luna site. Effectively Huaca de la Luna ("Temple/Shrine of the Moon") is a large brick structure built mainly by the Moche people of northern Peru. It dates back to pre-inca times. Both structures are part of Huacas de Moche, the remains of an ancient Moche capital city called Cerro Blanco by modern archaeologists. The site has been painstakingly uncovered by archiologists and many of the painted murals you see are the originals and have been perfectly preserved. The sites were only found in the 1960's as previously they were just thought to be hills however the rain eroded the mud that they had been covered with thus exposing some of the brick work.
After visiting the structures we were taken to a restaurant for an indifferent lunch and we then headed to the Chan Chan site. Chan Chan is the largest Pre-Columbian city in South America and it covers 20km2. Chan Chan was constructed by the Chimor a civilization which grew out of the remnants of the Moche civilization. The city of Chan Chan was built by the Chimu around AD 850 and lasted until its conquest by the Inca Empire in AD
1470.
I can honestly say that I have now seen enough ruins to last me for awhile and thankfully I don't anticipate seeing any for a few moths at least....
That evening Sharon and I once again head into the centre for some food. Whilst we were sat in the restaurant one of the guys we had met the previous night came in with a friend. We all got talking and told them of our problems the night before and also that we had been ripped of by a taxi driver. So Jean and his friend,Paul, decided it was their duty to make it up to us so we didn't leave Trujillo with bad memories. Paul also runs a tourist agency and charity and was initially trying to get us to go on one of his tours however once he realised we were taking him up on this he wanted to tell us more about his charity and his future hopes of intertwining his charity and tourist agency by offering volunteer work so we could pass on his details to fellow travelers for the future. In all honesty I hope that the venture works for him as he
was doing his best to educate the people of Trujillo and his charity was trying to provide education and assistance to the children in the local area that otherwise would be forgotten,
Anyway both Jean and Paul are Salsa dancers and teachers so we ended up dancing. Well in my case it was more an attempt to dance. Sharon regularly goes to salsa classes at home so was able to throw out some impressive moves whereas I know I can't dance and really didn't want to even have a go however they were all insistent that I tried but I duly proved once again that Brimelows can't dance! It was good fun anyway....
The next day we booked our tickets to head up the coast and get closer to Ecuador. We were wanting to go to Mancora however could only get tickets to Piura however were told it would be easy to get a connecting bus. It was easy however we ended up having 5 hours to kill before our connecting bus. Sharon ended up reading and I once again proved I have Brimelow blood flowing through my veins by falling asleep in the busy bus station for
a few hours.
Next stop was the surf town of Mancora....
Advertisement
Tot: 0.125s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 10; qc: 47; dbt: 0.0636s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Fernando
non-member comment
The Fruit
The Fruit that you buy is called "Pacae"