Lima & Trujillo: Where we did not ride our bikes and went to the beach.



Beaches are awesome. Local fishing boats lined up ready to go. We tried ceviche (raw fish marinated in lemon and chilli)here for the first time, it was eye wateringly hot.

More Photos here

Lima was a huge city, and with twice the population of NZ living in one place it was definately busier than what we were used to. Peruvians insistance on using the horn instead of the brakes and indicators did not stop here either so the whole city rang to the sound of 10 million horns and car alarms (no exaggeration). With its reputation for being a bit dodgy we only explored the more well-off suburb of Miraflores but still had plenty to see and do, mostly ogling western-style supermarkets, malls and fast food chains. Our hostel was right accross from the main park which was great to sit in and people watch, or to find tasty treats from the street vendors. Our hostel breakfast was taken in a cafe with outdoor seating fronting the park which was great but also quite posh, we had to put on our number one clothes just to eat there. Our trusty polar fleece pants looked a bit out of place here.

Our one excursion outside of Miraflores took us to the National Museum to have a look at the pottery from various preColumbian cultures. It took us over 2 hours to walk there alongside two very busy arterial roads and by the time we found it it was 20 minutes until closing. Fortunately we don't know anything about ceramics and Anna was more interested in the building, which she described as 'big and angry'.



The Peru National Museum.



It was obvious that cycling in Lima was an activity bordering upon suicidal. When we tried to book our bus tickets to leave the travel agent told us that the road had been blocked by protests and that we could not leave today and would have to wait. One more night in Lima was required. We learnt today in Trujillo that this was a load of bull as another kiwi we met here left on the bus that we wanted and was blisfully ignorant of any strike and arrived without trouble.

Upon arriving in Trujillo at 8am after an all-night bus we went toward the centre of town and checked into the first hostel that we came accross. Turned out we lucked into a good and cheap one that had all the things we love - internet, warmish showers and cable tv.

The ruins of Chan Chan were our next stop. This town was built by the Chimu people around 1300AD. The whole city covered 28 square km and was the largest pre Columbian city in the Americas and the largest adobe (mudbrick) city in the world. Being made of mud, piles of sand were all that remained of most of the city but a few areas have been restored and brought back to their former glory (minus the gold flakes and paint). The outer walls were up to 20m tall which is quite a long way to stack up mud. The inner walls had intricate reliefs that represented pelicans, fish and fishing nets. The tax office area had the best carvings. We caught a local bus there for S1.50 each after the guidebook said that it wasn't safe to walk/bike. Turns out it would've been fine. More likely to be struck down by sunburn than robbery. We also splashed out and hired a guide as the place was pretty big and what we were looking at was hardly self-explanatry.

In front of the original Chan Chan reliefs. One of the benefits of hiring a guide was that we could get lots of photos of us together.

Temple of the moon.

The beach was our next stop after being way to hot amongst piles of mud bricks. It was great to dip our feet in the water to cool off, after not seeing the ocean since Puerto Montt in January. It was still suprisingly cold given how far north we are. The local fishing fleet are boats made from Totara reeds similar to those at Titikaka but with a cruved front like a surf ski. There were a few locals offering rides but you got quite wet even though the surf was small so we did not fancy a ride and possible hypothermia.

This was as close as we came to surfing on the reed boats

Fishing vessel or tourist craft? Not bad for a bundle of reeds. This was funny as the girl sat down a bit too soon and the guy couldn't pull the boat into the water. Not like we were trying it ourselves, though.

Lifes beachy here. We have decided that we could get used to this so are accelerating our trip for the Caribbean beaches in Columbia where the water is warmer.

Tonight we will catch another bus to Guayquail in Equador to skip the remaining desert and bandit country. Northern Peru and Southern Ecuador are two areas that many cyclists have warned us of so we are giving the who area a complete miss. In Guayquail we will be in the middle of where the worlds' bananas come from so we may have to try a few from the source to see if they are better than the exported ones. Our hopes are high for a banana smoothie extravaganza. From there we head back into the mountains to the Ecuadorian highlands where we cycle towards Quito and the equator!