Hotel America Chiclayo

... elaborate gold armor that the king and his wives were burried in. On our last day, we found a market that spanned eight city blocks. It sold everything you could ever want, from flowers, to groceries, to friendship string (we stocked up), to live rabbits, to shoes, the list could go on and on. That evening we bought tickets on a really nice bus (chicken dinner, english language movies, SEATBELTS!) to ...

So first stop in Peru. Arrived late, unfortunately after dark, which we'd been trying to avoid. However it was just arround the corner from the hotel we were aimed for. Cheap and cheerful, like phil's gifts! Kidding! Anyway Chiclayo was just a stop over town really. Perfectedly nice, as you'd expect there's not a sudden massive change from Ecador to Peru. Except the landscape on route out of the bus window. I mean in the 10hr journey ...

... some archaeological sites in the surrounding area and leave after a couple of days.<br><br>To be honest, it didn't start out too badly. We easily found somewhere to stay and somewhere to eat but I think the couple of beers I'd had did nothing for my throat or my general well-being. The next day I woke up feeling worse &#8211; pain, pain, pain. I had to go to the doctor. So off we went, trawling the streets for a general practitioner. We eventually found one who was ...

... I consulted with a local witch doctor - VicenteAlejandra - world famous and featured in some German and French magazines. He asked me to let him feel my pulse from the palm of my hand, then held his hand to my forehead and felt my chakra and spiritual energy. He told me that I needed to have a potion containing the bones of some wild Peruvian cat similar to a tiger (cant remember the name) and he mixed up a potion ...

... to have fun and he would see us again in 2 ½ hours. So much for any wishful ideas of a ski lift or even steps up to the top. We were really wondering what exactly we were getting for our money when we saw the driver pay the owner of the land what looked like 60 soles. That was about 2/3 of what we paid him! Well we only had two hours of sand boarding - lets get hiking up!<br> Climbing up a sand dune is like trying to climb up an escalator that is going down. Every step you take slides you ...

... Thick-Knees the last day, and by the end we had nearly run out of birds to find in the reserve. Other interesting wildlife sightings included the Guayaquil Squirrel and to our surprise, an inland, river-inhabiting crab that wandered out onto our path in the forest.<br><br>It was a nice detour and our last main stop in Peru. From here we will head to Piura, Peru, where a bus awaits us to head to Loja, Ecuador, our final country of the trip.

... Peru is dry, dusty and windy. And the eroded adobe pyramids looked like little more than small hills in this vast desert. Unfortunately, some locals were put out by the fact that archaeologists wanted to preserve this history and things got violent at times. Although many items had already been plundered, there were many left to be discovered and are now ...

Today was quite the productive day versus yesterday afternoon's laziness. I don't remember if I put this in yet, but I'll put it in again just in case. I met a few more Chiclayo CSers last night and we had drinks till pretty late, but I was still able to get up nice and early(ish) to head out to see some history.. :) Luckily, (Jose) Ricardo has an aunt who works at the Señor de Sipan "Tumbas Reales" (Royal Tombs) museum, so we saved the S./10 entrance fee (also ...

... mejor, al Museo del Señor de Sipán. Es un museo que está totalmente dedicado a como viviá la cultura Mochica y todo lo que encontraron en la tumba de este señor. Totalmente increíble, lo disfruté muchísimo, pero no dejan tomar fotos. Chiclayo es una ciudad bonita, a comparacíon con lo que habiamos visto hasta el momento. Probamos ...

... alors la bande de gringos est partie pour se faire un bon souper de gros steaks. :) ---------- Well we finally found a very well located, nice and very low priced hostel yesterday, and after that we went shopping for a tour of the ruins of the region. We were lucky there too, as we got two tours, one of Chiclayo today and one of Trujillo tomorrow, for the price of 90 Nuevos Soles per person (~30$US). Tons of things to see! :) Northern Peru is not as well known as ...