We headed south from Cuenca in Ecuador to the Peru border, where after a circuitous drive around the border town trying to find the border post for Trevor the truck which was located separately to the border post for us, we made it safely across without any difficulties. If we’d tried to cross 2 days later it would have been a different story though as the Ecuadorian Police went on the rampage in protest against new laws that reduced their pay. We were very lucky to have escaped Ecuador before trouble erupted as the border with Peru was shut and the tour group going north ended up stuck in their hotel in Cuenca for 3 days with an armed guard outside the door! As we crossed the border the landscape changed almost immediately from lush greenery to desert. I hadn’t realised that a substantial portion of Peru is desert - the sand dunes and sandy mountains are beautiful and extended as far as the eye could see.
Our first stop in Peru was the beachside town of Mancora, which is a backpacker/surfer resort with not much to do apart from surfing. However, as this was the first warm beachy place we’d been to and we’d been rushing around so much, we were all grateful for the rest and took to our sunloungers around the pool for a relaxing 3 days in the sun. The Loki hostel we stayed in was great fun as there were various organised activities to keep us amused, including pool volleyball, ultimate frisbee, beer pong, Loki Olympics and karaoke. Le Roux sang a very good and amusing version of Billy Idol’s White Wedding and Lindsay and I sang Chesney Hawkes’ I are the One and Only – I had no voice left the next day after singing my heart out!
We also did our good deed for the week by collecting rubbish from the beach and earned ourselves a beer from the hostel. The hostel had what I can only describe as the worst pool table ever!! The balls had a habit of rolling in unexpected curves and this led to very lengthy games – it kept us amused though while drinking vodka sunrises and alcoholic slush puppies. Le Roux headed out fishing one morning but unfortunately he didn’t catch anything worth eating, so Scoota and Miguel had to go to the fishmarket instead to stock up for our delicious seafood BBQ one afternoon.
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| Temple of the Moon |
Having recharged our batteries and started on our tans, we left Mancora and drove 10 hours south to Huanchaco. I hadn’t realised quite how big Peru was and the long drive did not get us very far on the map! On the way we stopped in Lambayeque at the Sipan museum, which housed lots of artefacts from the Royal Tombs of Sipan – very interesting and impressive. Huanchaco is also a beach town, but the weather was not as warm being that much further south, but this didn’t matter though as the main reason for camping here was to visit some ancient ruins.
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| Chan Chan friezes |
We visited Chan Chan, a Chimu city built around 1300AD - given it was all built from mud, I couldn’t believe that so much of the structure and the decorative friezes of sealife and waves were still intact. We also visited Las Huacas del Sol y de la Luna – the Temples of the Sun and the Moon. These were built by the Moche people in 600AD, again from mud. The Temple of the Moon was even more impressive than Chan Chan as the decorations were intricate and had even retained their colours. The Temple of the Sun is Peru’s largest pre Columbian structure, and that’s with only 30% of it still in existence as the Spanish rerouted a river to try and wash it away!
The Peruvian Mayoral elections took place the day we visited the temples and we were all slightly on edge given the very recent trouble in Ecuador. However, they seemed to go off without any issues, which was a relief.
As we were cooking dinners for a few nights in a row, we split into 3 rival cooking teams and headed out to the supermarket with the challenge of making dinner for 13 people (Scoota’s best mate Max had joined us for a few days) with only 40Sols (about £9) to spend. Given Le Roux and I can both cook and so can Adrian, we each headed up a team and came up with a meal idea – Le Roux did one of his famous stews (yummy as always!), Adrian cooked veal in mushroom and white wine sauce with pasta (delicious!) and I cooked a veggie stirfry with cashews (not bad if I do say so myself!). My team was the only one to come in on budget, but admittedly we didn’t buy any meat, which is quite pricey. It was good fun having the cook off and we’ll definitely do it again, however, as we’ve got another 11 people joining us in Lima, it will get tricky cooking for 24 people on just 2 gas burners!
Le Roux decided to write a little biography of each person on our trip (including me!) to publish in his blog and he accompanied each one with a picture. Disturbingly he kept taking pictures of all us when we were asleep on the bus, therefore, the pictures are not flattering!! The whole group was amused by the biogs when he read them out over dinner one evening and he managed not to offend anyone too greatly, although Vanessa was a little peeved initially! I have subsequently managed to get a picture of Le Roux asleep so it's only fair that I upload that for you all to see too!
Next stop was Huaraz, up in the mountains. The drive was our longest yet at 12 hours, due to the roads being bad and us having to drive round in a huge loop. However, the scenery on the drive was also the best yet – we started at sea level by the beach and rose up to 4000m, travelling through desert and then amazing snowcapped mountains. Huaraz is at 3100m, set in a valley in the Cordilleras Blanca mountains, the highest mountain range outside the Himalayas, with Peru’s highest mountain which is over 6000m.
5 of our group went iceclimbing while the other 5 of us headed out on mountain bikes. We were driven up one of the mountains for over an hour, and then we spent the next 2 hours enjoying the ride downhill! The scenery was spectacular and we saw lots of locals going about their daily business. They’re not keen on being photographed and even when you pay them they barely pose, so I think it’s going to be a bit of a challenge to get some good photos of the locals, but I’ll keep trying! We saw quite a few people making mud bricks with which they build their houses. Luckily there’s not much rain as the combination of mud bricks, palm leaves and bamboo poles doesn’t seem very weather resistant. As we descended quite quickly our cycle guide took us on a circuitous route back, which unfortunately involved some short uphill stretches. Normally these would not have been a problem, but with the high altitude and the fact that we’d not acclimatised, these were really tough, and I found myself huffing and puffing in no time, even though the hills weren’t that steep!
The best part of the trip so far came next – the hike to Laguna 69 in the Parque Nacional Huascaran. However, we had to survive a crazy minibus ride to get to National Park, with more time spent on the wrong side of the road either avoiding potholes or blind overtaking on bends – somewhat nerve-wracking! The scenery was absolutely stunning, with marvellous mountain and waterfall views, culminating in an aquamarine lake at over 4800m. The trek was tough though and towards the end, up the last steep part I found myself stopping every few metres to get my breath back, but it was well worth the effort.
Poor Hannah and Lindsay were struggling with altitude sickness during the walk and found it particularly tough, whereas I was fine during the walk, but on getting back to the bus, I developed a splitting headache and horrible nausea. There seems to be no predicting how you’ll react to altitude! This walk is higher than the Inca trail so hopefully we’ll all be fine on that, especially as we will have had a bit more time to acclimatise beforehand.
Complete photo album:
We also did our good deed for the week by collecting rubbish from the beach and earned ourselves a beer from the hostel. The hostel had what I can only describe as the worst pool table ever!! The balls had a habit of rolling in unexpected curves and this led to very lengthy games – it kept us amused though while drinking vodka sunrises and alcoholic slush puppies. Le Roux headed out fishing one morning but unfortunately he didn’t catch anything worth eating, so Scoota and Miguel had to go to the fishmarket instead to stock up for our delicious seafood BBQ one afternoon.
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