Peru

If I were to write this post a week or so a go I would likely have written a harsh diatribe against Peru, undoubtably describing it as one of the worst countries I have ever visited. Such an attitude stemmed from the fact that, within the first 5 days of us being in Peru, more things conspired to go wrong than the combined prior 6 weeks of our trip. The difficulties began before we’d even received our immigration stamp, with us immediately being accosted by a dodgy taxi driver the moment we took our first steps over the Peru/Ecuador border. This driver was the only one about and seemed pleasant enough as he led us to his unmarked piece of crap taxi. Taking our seats in the back we were joined by another peruvian guy who jumped into the front seat, claiming that his role was to sort out all the security checks and immigration hassles. The Peru – Ecuador border is actually a total bastard, with disputes today ensuring that the two immigration offices are about 8 km apart. We thought this a little dodgy but left anyway for the Peruvian office, whereupon the drivers immediately asked for a $5 dollar bribe so we could skip to the front of the queue. This formality over we also found we had to pay another $2 bribe, our drivers having thoughtfully managed to illegally park for the 5 minutes it required to sort our transaction. Pulling off again the two douchebags suddenly decided that it was going to cost us $20 dollars to take us to the nearby city of Tumbes, a journey that should have cost half that amount. After a huge amount of arguing Paul managed to barter it down to $15, an argument that had to be repeated when they asked for petrol money when they pulled into a petrol station.

Arriving in Tumbes, a blisteringly hot and architecturally gaudy city with nothing to recommend it, we got into one final argument as our drivers refusing to accept dollars, despite an earlier agreement. Eventually the stand-off resulting in me having to go to a flashpoint to get out some Peruvian currency. This was not the start to Peru we were hoping for.

 

Leaving Tumbes early next morning we travelled to the beach resort and surfing destination of Mancora. Hoping for a relaxed small town like Taganga in Colombia we were instead dumped in a sprawling, tacky place whose huge amounts of building work made it resemble more a bombed out Kosovo than a tranquil haven. Luckily our hostel was a kilometer up the road from the town in a relatively secluded location by the beach, with us pulling up in our shanky rickshaw to a sign which stated ‘welcome to paradise’ (there’s that phrase again). The people in our hostel were all pretty much surfer/ traveller clichés, with Bob Marley and Jack Johnson on constant repeat, but were on the whole pretty nice. The beach itself was also pretty spectacular, though not quite as nice as the ones I’ve visited in Asia it did have some of the best sunsets I have ever encountered. The couple of days we spent in Mancora we didn’t do a huge amount, just splashing around in the ocean, reading, eating and drinking, all fairly nice but almost undermined by the multitudes of mosquitoes determined to become obese on our tender western flesh. 

One flat beach - Mancora

Taking our leave after a morning body boarding on the worlds most scratchy body boards we left for Piura, four or so hours South. This town was pretty much nothing but a stop off point and, apart from playing chess against some locals in one of the parks (I got stomped), nothing of note really happened. Jumping on another four-hour bus the following morning we headed to perhaps the shittest place in the world: Chiclayo. We came not for the town but for the nearby pre Inca site of Tucumbe, also known as the valley of the pyramids.

Valley of the Pyramids, Túcume

Arriving in Chiclayo we hopped in a cab to be told by our taxi driver that the hostel we wanted had closed (probably a lie) and he took us to different one that was overpriced. Baulking at the price we got him to take us to another, cheaper one, our room coming with the added bonus of dozens of insects buzzing around. Steeled by our cheapness we each armed ourselves with one of my flip-flops and commenced committing insect genocide before sleeping.

 

The following morning we set off to get to Tucume, a process which proved tricky as no one seemed to know where the collectivos (basically rammed, sketchy vans) to the site went from. Eventually we hailed a cab in order to get to the collectivo area, a rather stupid procedure as the driver didn’t know where they went either. Whilst we were trying to solve this conundrum a passing local decided to add to the good times by reaching through my open window and snatching my wallet from my lap. I reacted as any sane person would be shouting ”cheeky fucker” before getting out the cab to run after him. Unfortunately for me he had a 30m lead and after a chase which wasn’t quite up to Jason Bourne’s standards he turned a corner and disappeared, taking my wallet with him. Luckily it only had $30 in it and no cards but I was pretty pissed off as we finally managed to find the place for the collectivos to Tucume. Boarding one I spent the next forty minutes feeling pissed off whilst being sandwiched between two ridiculously fat Peruvians until we finally polled up to the site.

 

The site itself was actually pretty interesting and beautiful, the centre point being a mountain called “purgatory mountain.” Around this a number of huge adobe brick temples set in desert were clustered and in turn countless acres of lush green rice fields in surrounding them. Walking round the site followed by an ascent of the mountain saw my black mood being lifted, with the view from near the peak being pretty special. This brief high proved, however, to be a cruel trick played by fate as at the exit of the site I discovered that I had dropped my treasured mp3 player somewhere on purgatory mountain. This was a worse disaster than losing my wallet as my mp3 player is the thing which has shielded my ears against the aural crimes of the repetitive South American music blasted out in every bus and the banality of Jack Johnson, Coldplay etc blasted out in various hostels.

 

Returning to our insect infested hole of a room we went to sleep only to wake the next morning with stomach cramps, probably caused by eating some dodgy ceviche the day before. Ceviche itself is the national dish, supposedly consisting of it does of mostly raw seafood flavoured with lime and red onion. I say supposedly as in reality it normally tastes of lime flavoured food poisoning.

 

The final kick in the balls Shitlayo gave us was when we thought we were home and dry, trying to leave. The bus system in Peru us pretty stupid due to the fact that instead of having a central bus terminal where all companies go from Peru’s system sees every company run their own, meaning checking bus times involves mini hikes between terminals. Consequently this meant we had to trudge around for ages trying to find a bus which went to Trujillo, our next destination. After a couple of hours of looking and waiting we finally found one and left the city, vowing never to return.

 

Although nominally headed for Trujillo our guidebook informed us that most people stay in the quiet ex fishing village of Huanchaco, 15 minutes by cab from the city. Once again hoping for a quiet, tranquil stop, Huanchacho actually turned out to be another sprawling and charmless town which Peru tends to specialise in, this time with the added feature of a decent beach. Thankfully our hostel was actually very nice with a number of cool people in it and decent restaurants nearby. Thus again our mood began to improve and thankfully this time stayed fairly buoyant.

 

Ornate windows, Trujillo.

Our reason for visiting the area was due mainly to the historic sites in the vicinity and we set off for the first of these, Chan Chan, the following morning with a couple of nice Americans we met during breakfast. Chan Chan was the capital city of the pre-inca Chimu culture who began building work on the city around AD 700, with the remains of the huge site today scattered around the area between Trujillo and Huanchaco in varying states repair. Starting off at the large main complex we found an evocative place in the midst of the desert that had a number of beautiful reliefs and a small but picturesque lake in its centre. Following this we grabbed taxis to two other temples, (known as huacas) that were interesting though somewhat underwhelming compared to the grand splendour of the main complex.

 

Chan Chan city complex of the indigenous Chumi.

The following day we hit up another couple of huacas, the huaca del sol and huaca de la luna on the far side of Trujillo. Though it took us an obscenely long time to travel the 25k to get there (about two and a half hours) they were thankfully worth it, with the huaca del sol in particular being wonderfully preserved. Having had our fill of the area’s history we spent the following day lazing on the beach before exploring Trujillo, another average town raised from mediocrity by its attractive colonial centre. At Trujillo I also picked up a new mp3 player, a piece of crap ipod mini ripoff called simply the ‘reproductor mp3.’

 

Huaca de la Luna, Huanchaco.

Huaca Pullaca, down town Lima.

Leaving Trujillo on a night bus we ventured to Lima, arriving early hours at our plush hostel in the Miraflores suburb of the city. Many other travellers are pretty harsh on the city, describing it in no uncertain terms as a hectic, polluted dive which they could not wait to leave. Our own view is that this description is a little harsh, sure, plenty of the city matches this description but there are a few nice nooks and crannies and points of interest. During the 3 days we spent there we hit up another huaca, had a tour of the world’s most boring house, went round the world’s most boring museum but were thankfully saved from complete boredom by an interesting Italian art gallery. Frustratingly, the other major museums were either closed or we weren`t allowed in due to not carrying any ID,  we spent our spare time buying pirate DVDs and a racist chess set. The nights we spent drinking at our hostel with some guys we met in Mancora and getting too plastered to leave. Go us. To complete the excitement one night our sleep was also rudely interrupted by one of our dorm mates who was too hammered to find the toilet and decided to just take a piss on the floor, lovely stuff.

 

La Iglesia de San Francisco, Lima - complete with riot van.

Leaving Lima on a plush bus, replete with hot meals and waiter service, we continued to Nasca, home of the famous lines. Nasca was a fairly pleasant town and the lines themselves were extremely interesting despite us only being able to view a couple from a metal tower (to see them all you need to fly over them, we are too cheap for that.) After viewing the lines we whiled away the rest of the day waiting for our night bus walking around the outskirts, viewing more ruins, a football game and some impressively built Inca aqueducts.

Nazca Lines, Peru - Pictured: Figure of a Tree.

What would have been a pretty good day though was almost ruined by the worst meal I have eaten since pig knuckle soup in the Philippines: fried seafood. What I thought was going to be like calamari actually turned out to be overpriced sadness on a plate, rubbish.

Boarding another night bus, this time the cheapest we could find, coming as it did with the added benefit of constant shit smells, we left for our current destination, Arequipa. Here we have had a nice time spending a couple of good days touring the colca canyon, the deepest canyon in the world. I’ll write about this on the next post as writing so much is making me lose to the will to live. Adios.