Huanchaco International Hotel

... was not great, very cloudy apart from a couple of hours in the arvo with nice sun but it didnt matter too much for us, we just walked around, soaked in the atmosphere and listened to the waves crashing onto the beach...pure bliss! <br><br>Luckily we ate dinner very early at 5.30pm as all the restaurants seemed to close at 6pm randomly and (surprise surprise), we had another early night to enjoy the luxury of a bed! <br>Not too much goes on in Huanchaco, its ...

... the food (breakfast, lunch and diner) is very nice and cheap. After we took a well deserved shower, we went to a restaurant (My Friend), where it is 2 euro for a spaghetti (15 different choices), garlic bread and a drink. This is the place to be for real food lovers ;-)<br><br>Wednesday, we went to the archeological site of Huaca de la luna and Huaca del sol in Trujillo. We took the local bus and a collectivo. Taking a local bus is an adventure as they are very ...

We arrived in Trujillo bright and early and I felt really bad.... morale of teh story.... DONT eat creme caramelly type thing froma bus vendor! Anyway, because it was so early, we decided to check into a hotel, even if we decided to get teh night bus out... - we got a taxi to take us to Huanchaco which is a small fishing village just out of Trujillo and checked into our hotel... 50s for a day, steep but I just needed to sleep for a bit. it was a really nice place, with a nice courtyard ...

... you can see as you approach along the highway. Most of it just looks like lumpy sand dunes and crumbling walls. But they have repaired one section, and are working in numerous nearby areas restoring the ruins. But the question I found myself asking was, why even if you could get plenty of fish from the sea and irrigation to the city to the rivers would you want to even live here? As I said earlier, Peru, not really inspiring me just yet!<br>Chan Chan was pretty cool. I knew abit ...

... where he is from and Adrian states he´s Peruvian. Pavlov´s dry retort was ¨you look it¨ which was much to our amusement and suprise as they had also just met. Adrian goes on to tell us that he is indeed from Peru, he was born here, and so are his parent and grandparents. None of us are sure that his name was actually Adrian or if we named him that, but it suited him with his squeeky voice.<br><br>We finish looking around Chan Chan and Al and I wander over to ...

... not look so fake. But still, I was quite underwhelmed by the whole thing, really. Not a patch on the grandeur of Kuelap.<br><br>I spent one more day in the area, which I spent wandering around the city of Trujillo. As I was expecting something along the lines of Chiclayo, I was quite pleasantly surprised to find that the city has some nice architecture and is generally not that bad... if a little dull. I did, however, find some Peruvian tour guide seller who had friends ...

... me glad that though I've been through Lima three times, I've never stayed there for more than a few hours.<br><br>But back to the story...the Museo Tumbas Reales de Sipan is four times the size of the Museo de Sitio and packed with cool stuff. I stumbled through more Spanish explanations (it's exhausting reading all that information in a foreign language) and appreciated the artifacts: gold, and lots of it. Now we're talking. I had been disappointed in Cuzco at the lack of Inca gold on ...

... A lot of imagination was needed to picture how the site must have looked. We were a it disappointed really, although the highlight was a cartoon-like statue of a Chimu bloke stood by the entrance to one of the big open squares; we named him Bob.<br><br>After getting ice creams in the car park we sourced another taxi driver to take us the short distance south-east to Huaca Esmerelda, a ceremonial pyramid. We wandered about inside for five minutes or ...

... The price to Hu*nch*co seemed re*son*ble, so we followed him outside... to discover th*t his c*r w*s * be*ten up multi-coloured scr*p he*p on wheels. Bl*t*ntly f*ke ID c*rd! Telling him politely to sod off, we hopped in * yellow *nd more offici*l-looking t*xi *nd were soon on the w*y north to Hu*nch*co.<br><br>Once *t the hostel we sorted our stuff out in our rooms then h*d pizz*s *t the hostel rest*ur*nt. Pretty kn*ckered, *fter our m*r*thon 22 hour journey, we soon retired to bed.

... unload a fake 100 Sole note -or more - on me in exchange for good change, or dollars. There is a lot of fake currency in Peru. Maybe they were legitimate, friendly and genuine. I didn´t wait to find out - when they both popped out to ´buy the pad in a supermarket´, i paid my bill and disappeared.<br><br>First impressions of Peru are that it reminds me of some parts of Guatemala/Nicaragua. It seems poorer, more chaotic and more raw than Ecuador and Colombia. It ...