Gran Chiclayo

We made it to Peru! We caught a three hour bus from Montanita, through the rain, down the coast to Juayaquil. I trade my sweatshirt for a drum along the way. The bus station there was big and crowded with pushy South Ecuadorians. Surrounded by stores, and the smell of fast food, we felt more at home than we had for a while. We happily ate KFC and listened to a peruvian flute band play covers of classic ...

... huge bottles so we were still going after having finished our food and this was when we noticed the two local guys at the table next to us who had already got through several bottles and tried to see how much beer they had offered to the beer god. It turned out it was for the dregs, but you had to twist the bottle once you got near the end and then empty the last bit into the glass. At this point, the two guys ...

... told us that most of the interesting stuff at the site had been moved to the museum anyway. We wandered around the museum for a couple of hours, admired the gold craftsmanship, the ceramic pottery, and read about the Sipan culture. <br> The rest of the day isn&#8217;t really worth writing home about. We headed back to hostel to grab our stuff, headed to the bus station, and hopped on the night bus to Chachapoyas.

After flying back to Lima we were keen on getting up to Ecuador as quickly as possible. While originally we had planned on taking a bus straight to Tumbes for the crossing, we instead ended up at the Chaparri Reserve in northern Peru. The Chaparri Reserve is a community-owned and run reserve (i.e., not government) that protects some dry-forest and a bunch of unique Tumbesian region animals and plants. The Tumbesian Dry-Forest is an endangered ...

... it seemed, we started just walking down the highway... We walked past the demonstration, which I filmed a little bit on the sly as we walked by, and after half an hour or so, we met up with another combi on the other side which we boarded and charged us 2 soles (under 1USD) to get into town. We also had to take several side ways, but eventually, finally got there. Now here I am, killing a bit of time at ...

... Lord of Sipan rests and all that good stuff. New museum that was opened earlier this year, and it was cool to see the actual digging sites... I'm really tired, so that's all you get today, sorry! I think I'm finally leaving for Mancora tomorrow night, haha..

... with some attractive pieces of pottery. They also built flat-topped pyramids on which they worshipped their gods and had human sacrifices. Also visited a few of the museums displaying their precious artifacts. Tomorrow on to Trujillo.

... Starboard side, the sand etching it´s way into our eyes, mouth, ears...everywhere. The prevailing winds so strong there is no vegetation at all. There were a total of 5 curves between Piura and Chiclayo, this is the straightest road we have seen since we left the U.S. It´s hard to believe but it was a nice change. It gave me a chance too allow my thoughts to drift...........