From the desert coast of Huanchaco to...well... more desert along the Pacific Coast of Peru3/16/2012 Maria knows how to hail a cab. She knows that they will charge you too much and she knows how to bargain em' down. We departed our homestay in Huanchaco after a small but fun farewell with Maria, Jessica and Doggy. Maria came out to the main street with us to make sure we got a safe cab to take us into Trujillo to catch out night bus to Lima. The 9 hour bus ride from Trujillo to Lima was loads better than our last experience on a bus in Peru. We departed on time and there were no flaming cars on the road to slow us down! As it was a night bus we slept most of the way to Lima and woke only as we were on the outskirts of the city. The Panamerican Highway North into Lima winds its way high around massive sand dunes until it spits you out just before the city onto relatively level terrain. At first sight Lima looked pretty awful. The outer extents of the city are plagued with poverty and crime and the physical appearance did not give us the warm fuzzies. However, as we rolled deeper into the city in our colossal coach we were pleasantly surprised at how neat and tidy the downtown area was. And the best was yet to come! We hopped off our night bus in the morning sun and promptly bought two tickets to Huacachina for the following day to keep ourselves on track to hit Cusco for the 20th of March. We grabbed a cab and whistled towards our hostel in the bright (and fancy) neighborhood of Miraflores. We were absolutely shocked at how nice Miraflores was. Modern, safe and clean...oh soooo clean! We think that our western cities need to take some lessons on cleanliness from these Peruvians and that's not a joke. The streets of Miraflores are so clean that you could actually eat off of them. If a shred of paper hits the ground, it will be scooped up by one of the many (thousands probably) street janitors within 5 hours. Yeah its that clean. Ok enough about the shiny streets! "We only have a day in Lima!" I shouted to Courtney. "I know," she replied. And so off we went to explore they city! We started by grabbing a bite to eat on the bluffs that look over the ocean and were treated to the site of a pod of killer whales making their way along the coastline. Bellies full, we retreated to the hostel to check in and shower before zipping out again in search of a camping supply store in hopes of finding some camping cups and maybe even a cheap little stove. After finding each camping store to be closed we decided that we had been defeated and should probably go and get a burger to eat for lunch. Mas tardes, we found ourselves back on the malecon to watch the sunset and ... paragliders? Yes! Lima has a huge paragliding scene! We watched several fliers take off from the cliffs that separate Miraflores from the Pacific Ocean. It was cool to watch and tempting to go for a tandem flight but the s/ 150 price tag for a 10 minute flight turned us off the idea. We took some cool pictures anyway! From Lima we caught an early bus southbound to the desert oasis of Huacachina where the sand dunes are big and the pisco is plentiful! More to come on that soon...so stay tuned!
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Our second week in Huanchaco proved to be almost as exciting as the first. We continued to surf every day and take Spanish classes (although those went from daily to once every couple of days). We spent a Saturday afternoon visiting the ruins of Chan Chan, which is in between Trujillo and Huanchaco. Chan Chan is the largest pre-columbian city in South America at around 20 square kilometers in size. It was built in AD 850 by the Chimor civilization and lasted until its conquest by the Incas in AD 1470. Because of the harsh pacific coastal weather patterns in the region, Chan Chan is at a high risk for erosion and so much of the city has been protected with carefully placed awnings and shelters. You can read a little more about Chan Chan here. We returned from Chan Chan via a 'combi' which is basically a beat up old van that races between Trujillo and Huanchaco that serves to get people to and from work or the beach. Buses and combis are so frequent that you will wait no longer than 30 seconds before either drives by. They don't typically have designated stops so you can catch them anywhere. They are by far the most convenient form of public transit we've experienced so far and they cost basically nothing. For a 30 minute ride from Huanchaco to Trujillo the combi will set you back s/1.50 (Peruvian soles) which is about $0.60 (CAD). We had a hard time understanding why the people in Peru work on Peruvian time (usually at least 15 minutes late) but combis and buses are so frequent and convenient! Maria, our homestay mom, prepared a huge delicious meal of Ceviche (fresh raw fish that is marinated in lime juice, the citrus acids cook the fish a little) for 11 people and we enjoyed a sunset dinner atop her terrace to end the day. Throughout the week we had Maria prepare us an assortment of Peruvian dishes. We've now had fish, chicken, baby lamb, fried plantain (Courtney's favorite), yuka, salads, beans, and maiz moraldo which is a black corn fruit dessert. Everything has been so delicious! We've also had some good laughs around the table, mostly Maria and Jessica laughing at our terrible Spanish pronunciation. Our Spanish is getting a bit better; we went to a Spanish conversation class in Trujillo, it was somewhat difficult but all good fun as everyone is learning the language. We've really enjoyed our stay in Huanchaco and would recommend a homestay to any other travelers. If you're in Huanchaco contact David (fun Spanish teacher) at http://www.espaanglisch.com/spanish_classes and see if Maria's house is available. We're on our way to Lima for a night then continuing the journey South en route to Cuzco with a couple of stops along the way. I thought that we should probably explain the significance of our blog titles that are written in spanish so here it goes. Last night we were sitting around with Maria and Jessica and I (Andrew) was trying to explain what I ate for dinner the night before. I ate a calzone but in spanish the literal translation for that is panties. So I pretty much said last night I ate panties for dinner. They got quite the kick out of that little bit of castellano. Also, our previous blog post was titled gato con botas. The literal translation for that is cat with boots, but its actually used to describe the lovable kitty from the shrek series puss in boots! Check out the pics below and enjoy!!
We’ve been in Huanchaco for the last week taking Spanish and surf lessons and living at a homestay with an older lady, Maria and her daughter Jessica. We were excited for the homestay as we liked the idea of getting to know a family, eating meals at home and getting to practice our Spanish as Maria and Jessica don’t speak English. We’ve been having a great time except for the fact there is some kind of water problem here (at least at Maria’s) so we’ve been without running water for 4 days with little hope it’ll get turned on. We've been joking that we are going to go protesting (in typical Peruvian fashion) and shout quiero aqua! quiero agua! (I want water)! It's been very frustrating, and we've realized you don't appreciate clean running water until you don't have it for a couple of days or have to carry buckets and manually flush the toilet. Marie’s has been a good experience; we’ve enjoyed spending time with them trying to communicate through broken Spanish and hand gestures. The best part of the homestay has been that Maria has 2 small cats and a little cute dog named Doggy! She’s calls it a circus! Whenever we leave Doggy runs up onto the terrace and pops his little head over to watch us go…super cute! On Saturday after our Spanish lesson we stayed at the school and had a BBQ with our teachers and his friends. Later in the evening we watched a parade. We were pretty impressed at the size of the parade for such a small town. They even had fireworks! Sunday we went to the market with Maria then had an amazing almuerzo (lunch) all together. At night we go to the beach and watch the waves glow from bioluminescence (light created from the emission of energy from tiny living ocean organisms). It’s as if LED lights were strung inside the waves. It’s amazing to watch the wave light up and rip along the shoreline. Marie’s house is on the upper edge of town making it easy to watch sunsets and star gaze over the ocean. We had to adjust to the early mornings. Maria's son who is works on a cruise ship raises cocks (roosters for those who were thinking something else) for fighting, a popular sport here. She also has several laying hens, a few swans, and some parrots so we get woken up every morning at sunrise Ah! Finally some running water! The water started working again yesterday, but the last Canadian couple that stayed here flushed their toilet paper so the drains are plugged and the bedroom upstairs has flooded twice. Luckily we're not staying up there. So the water can only stay on to shower and flush the toilets. We try and help but Maria is so proud she doesn't want us to. We did eventually convince her to let us scoop water and carry the buckets to dump out when they were bailing out the bedroom... for the second time. Anyway, water issues aside, we had another surf lesson and have rented boards for this next week so we can practice by ourselves. It's so much fun to wake up early go for a run along the beach, eat fresh mangoes, then surf!! Needless toi say it didn't take long for us to adapt to this lifestyle :) Here are a few more pics to keep you occupied at work for the rest of the day. Its Friday though, right?! We had the pleasure of attending the Carnivale festivities on Isla San Cristobal the day before we left the Galapagos. There was a parade, lots of live bands, some delicious street food and the President of Ecuador was even there!! We were sad to leave the Galapagos because it was such a great experience but the rest of the world is calling and we still have a long way to go. After departing the Galapagos we returned to the Guayaquil on Ecuador's mainland. We had a full day to kill between arriving in Guayaquil and leaving for Peru on a long distance bus, so we decided to take in a few sights. We walked a solid 40 minutes from our hostel to the Malecon and spent a good part of the day strolling along Guayaquil's massive boardwalk along the Rio Guayas. An absolutely beautiful area, the Malecon has something for everyone. There are hundreds of small shops selling everything you can imagine from knick-knacks and trinkets to doo-dads and whats-its. The views across the Rio Guayas are also very stunning and for a small price one can hop on a river boat gambling trip for a couple hours to see the city. However, we prefer to keep those types of events in international waters where anything goes and the sky is the limit. The next day we jumped on our international Cruz Del Sur bus at 2:00pm to arrive in Huanchaco, Peru the next morning at 7:00am. We were really excited as the Cruz Del Sur bus was the top of the line with huge reclining leather chairs, food on board, and a bathroom all the makings for a comfy ride! We were a bit nervous for the Tumbes border crossing as we had heard stories about robberies; however, we were completely safe and sound and back on the bus in no time heading towards Huanchaco. After about 40 minutes from the border the bus backed into a compound in Tumbes, Peru where we saw two other Cruz Del Sur buses. The bus driver then came on over the loud speaker and told the bus in Spanish (so we didn't have a clue what was going on) that due to fishermen protesting and blockading the main highway we were spending the night in the bus compound until the next morning when they thought the road blockage would be over. Luckily we met some really nice people on the bus who translated for us. Unfortunately the next morning the road wasn't open so their next idea was to drive the bus we were on to the protest, where we'd all get out and walk across the protest lines then on the other side we'd be picked up by another Cruz Del sur bus. Their grand idea was to leave here at 11AM the NEXT morning (at this point we realized we would be spending more than an entire day in the bus terminal) and to walk across the picket lines. When we first agreed to this "plan" we were told the walk was approximately 200m, then a couple of hours later we heard it was 2 km, then 5km, and finally right before we were going to bed 12km. We thought it was nuts (and somewhat dangerous as 3 people were robbed walking it the day before) that everyone had agreed to a 12km walk carrying our large bags. What really blew our minds, was that everyone from South America was OK with it! They obviously haven't done any long distance wilderness hiking before, otherwise they would have thought twice about agreeing to walk 12km in blistering heat carrying large bags. Unfortunately we were more or less stuck. We were told by many people that Tumbes is very dangerous (being a border town) and we shouldn't walk around so going to find a hotel was not really an option unless we could walk with a local. As you can imagine sleeping is the bus for 2 nights was was difficult... we had no air conditioning (the driver left with the keys), people were snoring and knowing we would have to walk 12 km in that area scared us. When we were woken up at 5:00am by the bus being turned on (AH! finally some air) we were told the road had been cleared and we were finally leaving the compound, we were very relived. After spending two nights in the Tumbes bus compound we were very excited for the 10 hours of actual driving to arrive in Trujillo where we met our Spanish teacher and were taken to our homestay in Huanchaco. All in all our 17 hour bus ride turned into 53 hours. It wasn't too bad as we met some really nice people and will always remember our time in the Tumbes bus compound :) Here's a few more pictures to keep you entertained...
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