Finally Some Sun.

Jo doing what she does best.
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Day 1

An 8.5 hour bus ride has found us in Trujillo, Peru.  Firstly the bus was fantastic sat semi reclined and watched 3 and a half movies for the whole trip I didn't want to get off when we got to our stop.  About halfway through the trip we got a flat so in the break they pulled out bingo cards and read the numbers out over the PA....unfortunately in Spanish, needless to say between myself and jo we managed to decipher about half the numbers, guessed the rest and still got rolled by a 100 year old Peruvian woman who I am sure cheated....what is it with old ducks and bingo?

I'm not convinced that's her natural colour.
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Trujillo is bigger than expected (approx 1 million people) and when we got up this morning thought we had failed dismally in our search for a bit of sunshine and relaxation it was around 18 degrees and grey but once the fog burned off the temperature quickly picked up to an idealic 24 degrees with blue sky.

Went and saw a few temples today called Chan Chan built by the Moche who were around until 850ad when the incas came along and kicked their arses  (that's according to the guide book as neither of us are great at listening to guides).  Not bad but unfortunately built with mud bricks so slowly getting eroded away.

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As mentioned above Trujillo has about one million people, it also has approximately 2 million taxis, apparently due to high unemployment every man and his dog turns to driving a taxi to try and make some cash....actually haven't seen any dogs driving yet but did see a hairless ugly looking thing at one of the temples.

Day 2

This morning we went to Peru's version on the Pyramids.  Obviously no where near as impressive but still quite cool, once again built by the guys before the Incas.  The temples were built over generations and each generation added an extra layer over the original ones so the lower ones were well preserved.

Obligatory tourist shot
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We had a challenging afternoon.  We decided to leave our nice English speaking hostel and go to Huanchaco a fishing village about 20 mins away from Trujillo.  The first challenge was trying to catch what is called a collectivo (a mini bus around the size of a mitsubishi L300 express that they cram more than 20 people into).  Gave up on that idea pretty quick especially since we had our backpacks.

Arrived at Huanchaco via the more conventional form of transport, the taxi, more expensive but at least you have room to breathe.  Huanchaco's fishermen fish off surfboard looking reed boats and supposedly they were the first ever surfers.  We sat on the beach for ages waiting for them to come in but unfortunately we missed them.  So as true tourists we took photos in front of the boats and left.