It took 2 days to get to my first proper stop in Peru (see border-crossing post for details), Chachapoyas. And I ended up on quite the epic journey to make it to my next destination from there (explanation to come. Or, alternatively, see first part of the title of this post and avoid spending the next 15min of your life reading my ramblings).

Getting to Peru was pure adventure, beautiful scenery, and annoying colectivo drivers. It felt like an effort but definitely worthwhile doing that border crossing.

 We got to Chachapoyas around noon so had most of the day to get our bearings. That involved S./5 menu del dia and excessive caffeine consumption for 2 hours. By late afternoon, we enquired about onwards buses at the bus agencies and booked our day-trip for the next day. And I ran into an unforeseen problem. There were overnight (9hr) buses to Chiclayo from Chacha. But the onwards bus from there to Mancora was apparently not leaving till 7pm. A day in Chiclayo wasn’t my main concern, I figured I could find something to do there, but my time was starting to feel quite precious as a late night flight to Cusco awaited me on Oct. 5th (more on that decision coming up). So I had to make a call – shorten my beach time by a day to stay in Chacha the 2 days I had planned to or cut Chacha a day short and spend that day enduring an epic layover in Chiclayo. Before anyone wonders if I am getting the names of towns in northern Peru mixed up here, I should point out that I am aware that geographically, going to Mancora didn’t make sense. At all. But the ocean was calling me. Loudly. And I had been informed that Mancora is a solid beach destination in Peru (more than 300 sunshine days per year? I like those odds!) so it just had to be done. Damn you, Peruvian buses, with so little coordination in departure times.

To help me decide, I went for a drink. I discovered that beer isn’t particularly cheap (S./8) in this country and that pubs in northern Peru play very loud 80s rock music. None of that really helped me decide though.

The next morning it was decision time. I had gone to bed thinking I would head onwards after 1 day so I wouldn’t miss any sunshine days at the beach. But when I got up, I just couldn’t face having to spend that evening on a bus so soon after our epic border crossing and knowing I would be completely dependent on our day-trip returning to town by the time the agency claimed it would. So at 7.30, I was at the bus company, booking my 18.30 overnight bus to Chiclayo for Friday night, as originally planned. And then we went on an awesome tour to Kuelap. 

Kuelap is a full day trip from Chacha but they are an awesome example of pre-Inca/pre-Colombian ruins worth the journey. I was in historical paradise, it was so fascinating. Not on par in grandeur with Palenque but on par in excitement and fascination. Our guide came prepared with an umbrella and I came prepared for the worst with my raincoat but it turned out to be really lovely weather all day so I was pretty much as happy as can be.

We got back to town later than advised (a lot later – at 19.30!) and I was so happy I hadn’t decided to rush out of there that evening! What a planning disaster that would have turned out to be.

The next day we chilled in town. We had lost faith in day-trips returning to town at the advertised time and while there are so many things to see around Chachapoyas, most of them are full day trips away. So with everyone having onwards buses booked for that night, we were just too worried a tour wouldn’t get us back in time. So instead we walked around town, up to the mirador, through the market and hung out at the coffee place. Chacha still feels very local and non-touristy and people were incredibly lovely and helpful. But except for a few places offering menu del dia, everything is shut between 1 and 3 in the afternoon so it’s not as easy to have play-it-by-ear days as in other places.

I was on the 18.30 Civa bus out of Chachapoyas that evening while the others headed onwards to Trujillo a bit later. At 4am the next morning, my bus arrived into Chiclayo and I was expecting a bus terminal. But no, in Peru it seemed like each bus company has their own little mini departure terminal and ticket office. Thankfully I had picked up a map of Chiclayo at the tourist office in Chacha because the Lonely Planet is turning out to be quite the failure in the map stakes and it meant the security guard could show me where I was in town. When the ticket office (finally) opened at 7am, I enquired about the bus time/price for Mancora but I didn’t like the answer. A 5.30pm bus would get me to Mancora at midnight and S./40 seemed a lot. Thankfully, the Lonely Planet did mention that ‘most bus companies are based along Ave. Bolognesi’, which was where the helpful security guard had informed me I was 3 hours earlier, so I figured I’d just go see if I could find a better offer. I found Cruz del Sur but they didn’t even go to Mancora but when I asked the lady there if she knew where El Dorado was based (the bus agency, not the land of gold. Although that would have been great to find too), she gave me (extremely accurate) directions to Emtrafesa who had late-evening departures. So I booked the 11pm bus, let them staple my ticket to my backpack so I could leave it there for the day (but at the same time gave up all proof of my ticket purchase) and headed into town. Ok, admittedly I first walked out of town for about 30min because I had the map the wrong way around. But eventually I got there.

Chiclayo is an interesting city, lacking in colonial influences and short some cosy cafes but with nice warm weather and friendly locals (I must have exchanged ‘buenos dias’ with every single shop owner on 7 de Enero that morning. Similarly to Chacha, it’s outside town that the interesting historical sites are so I found a travel agency and asked about days trips and was sold on the Ruta Sican. Ruins AND museums? Sounded like an awesome day to me. And it was. It was me and 15 Peruvian pensioners (I immediately felt like I was cramping their style) in a van that played ‘Lambada’ when it reversed. The tour had the following 3 stops which I’m breaking down because I need to remember as many details about this when I get home so I can read up on it in English (our guide spoke only Spanish so I guarantee I’ve simplified a bunch of explanations):

Ferreñafe:

• Museo Nacional Sicán
  • background information to the various prehistoric cultures of northern Peru and the impressive tombs that were discovered at Sicán.
    • The Lord of Sicán was buried upside down with his head cut off. The words ‘enigma’ and ‘probablemente’ were used to describe why so I’m fairly sure there are some elements to his burial that they can’t explain.
      • In the opposite tomb (of a nobleman), which contained 24 people in total, girls from 4 families (sisters or cousins) were sacrificed. I didn’t understand any part of the explanation as to why this was done so if any literature exists in English about it, I’d like to read it.

• I got chatting to Maria who is from near Lima and asked to have her photo taken with me so I thought I must look really out of place in northern Peru. She was surprised to hear I was travelling alone but then produced a flyer with bible quotes from her bag and told me to hold on to that because with Jesus, I’d never be travelling alone. I wondered if Jesus’ solution to crappy weather and passing time waiting for buses would be 2 shots of tequila and a S./2.50 street burger. Because I’d like that kind of travel companion.

Túcume:

• Random ruins that I felt probably should be more impressive than they actually were but they had some interesting friezes. Here, I got chatting to a couple from Lima who had lived in the states for 20 years and their life-long friend from Chiclayo, Jorge, who now lives in Nevada and they provided some awesome translation help. I also spoke to Alejandro from Cusco who could be the country’s cultural ambassador. He kept asking me if I wanted my photo taken in front of anything of even minor interest and struggled to understand why I didn’t feel the need to be in my own photos. I was also carrying all my hand-luggage that day and he kept wanting to help me carry it (because, he said, where he is from, people are helpful like that). In the gift shop, he gave me a little coin purse which was such a sweet gesture – Peruvian pensioners were winning major points for friendliness.

Lambayeque:

• Lunch stop. At the kind of place where busloads of tourists show up and they churn out over-priced meals. I believe in packed lunches (or in this case assemble-on-arrival) so was quite obviously the cheap backpacker at that establishment.
• Museo Tumbas Reales del Señor de Sipán
  • on display were the vast amount of gold, jewellery, beads and pottery they uncovered in the Moche tombs in Sipán. It was beyond impressive.

• On the way back to town, we stopped at a sweet shop and Jorge bought me a pack of San Roque galletas rellenas de manjarblanco which he said he was sure I’d enjoy. I tried them for breakfast in Mancora and they were not good. I had to throw the rest of the pack out. Sorry Jorge! I felt like an adopted grandchild they all got to take care of and spoil for a day.

On the ride home, the guide got a round of applause, then the driver and then each different city represented in the van. Denmark got 3 rounds. My brain was so fried from having tried to understand Spanish all day that I’m not sure if it was because they didn’t think I got it the first time or if they just thought Denmark was awesome enough to deserve 3 rounds. I hope it was option two.

It was another late return to town so I didn’t have time to go to the spice market which was a bit gutting (it sounds awesome in the guidebook), instead I went to the supermarket (not the same, there were no sharmans there) and stocked up on bus snacks.

 

It was another straight forward night bus out of Chiclayo (my backpack with attached ticket was still at the bus terminal when I got back there at 10pm) and I got to Mancora just before 5am. There is no bus terminal in Mancora so I was happy it was dry and warm because I didn’t want to pay S./ 5 for a mototaxi to my hostel and I didn’t fancy walking around in the dark looking for it. So I sat at the side of the road and waited till it got light around 6.30 and then went searching for it. In hindsight, that was probably no safer than walking around in the dark.

I have developed a habit of missing the best party towns on the main party nights and got to Mancora on a Sunday. But while the town was a bit sleepy and recovering after the night before, the surf shops were still open so I comp-shopped prices for lessons because it feels silly that I keep hanging out in surf towns and I’ve never even been near a surfboard. I got chatting to Louis at a surf school called The Good People, who used to work at the hostel I was staying at so knew Sunday nights aren’t too crazy at Loki del Mar and it’d be safe to book in for a beginners lesson at 9 the next morning. So I did. 

It wasn’t totally safe though. It was slushie day and pub quiz night at Loki. Which my team won!! It’s like a parallel universe out here because I’m usually rubbish at pub quizzes but abroad I seem to be part of winning them. Our prize? A slush puppy or a t-shirt. Uhm free clothing? Hell yeah. So we all got an XL wife beater with hostel branding. If anyone catches me wearing this post-backpacking, or anywhere in public at any point in time, please slap some sense into me and remind me that I’m an embarrassment to my usual non-mainstream approach to things. Or simply just an embarrassment in general.

Impressively (just trust me on that), I was at the surf school at 9am the next morning, ready to brave the waves. I realised early on (when trying to copy the 4-step move to get up on the board that my instructor had drawn in the sand on the beach) that this would not come natural to me. And in the water, I proved again and again that my lack of balance and coordination makes me a really poor surfer. In 90min, I caught 3 waves somewhat properly – not a good track record. Day 2 was even worse. I probably caught 2 waves the entire lesson.

That afternoon I went with a newfound surf buddy to do some snorkelling with some turtles. It was a bus ride to Los Organos and a mototaxi to Ñuro away but we had intel that it was a worthwhile excursion. But those turtles were big. And impossible to see once in the water as there was very little underwater visibility. So we spent 30min treading water, being terrified of those unpredictable sea monsters the turtles were turning out to be. I might have actually screamed when one of them touched me. Embarrassing, yes, but I was so damn scared! We returned, barely-used snorkels in hand, to our surf shop after 3 hours and caused much amusement when relaying the story about our not-so-enjoyable encounter with massive turtles. 

The next morning, I had booked a dive so I showed extreme restraint at the bar the night before (and thankfully managed to win the last round of beer pong). I knew it was a drive away but I did not know the actual dive site until we pulled up to a familiar-looking pier with ‘Ñuro’ on the sign outside. I was back at the site of the scary turtles! But thankfully, they are less scary from underwater and we also got to see loads of curtains of fish and even a pregnant seahorse so it was a really fun morning and I got two more dives in my dive book.

After 4 days, it was time to head south to Huanchaco so I booked my bus ticket and a final surf lesson on the morning of departure. The surf was coming that day so even though we went out at 8 in the morning, there was already loads of proper surfers waiting for the waves. And those waves were massive so you can’t be slow on the board. Which I am. I didn’t catch any waves and my instructor kept repeating that freakin’ annoying yoga-mantra that I just don’t believe in – ‘you can do it, it’s just your mind telling you you can’t’. I guarantee it is not my mind saying I’m not strong enough to lift myself off that damn surfboard and keep my left foot flat on the board and step my right leg 1m forward before letting go of the board! I am just not strong, coordinated or flexible enough. Confidence has nothing to do with it. 

Huanchaco, my final stop before Cusco and the Inca trail, offered another opportunity to surf. And we need to remember that while I’m not sporty, coordinated, fit or flexible, I’m stubborn. Probably to a fault. Because I was not about to leave the coast for the foreseeable future without getting at least one more wave. So I took 2 more lessons while I was there, after another 9 hr overnight bus (from Mancora to Trujillo). And I caught waves! The teaching technique was slightly different in Huanchaco, not necessarily better unless you have at least a week to spend taking lessons, but it was nice feeling like I wasn’t a consistent surfing failure. The last lesson, which we had as the sun was setting on the Pacific ocean behind us was great – partly because of the setting and partly because I managed to read some of the waves and ride them without our instructor pushing my board. 

Huanchaco was a good fit for me, probably more so than Mancora which I did enjoy but was less chilled (possibly courtesy of many many happy hours). While in Huanchaco, the elections were on so alcohol couldn’t be sold the day before and day-of so it was quieter than normal. I loved my hostel though (Casa Amelia) and when Sunday came around, I did wish I had flexibility to stay a few more days and just relax. I visited the Chan Chan ruins in Trujillo one of the days I was there but felt slightly underwhelmed despite it being the largest adobe ruins in the world. Maybe it was just all too beige? 

I am saying goodbye to Huanchaco, the coast and northern Peru tonight when I head to Trujillo airport and catch an 11pm flight to Cusco (overnight via Lima). When I was in Quito, I looked into flight options to avoid rushing through 2 countries and decided I’d rather do fewer places properly than more places rushed. It’s a shame I’ll have to skip a sizeable chunk of Peru but at least it’s an excuse to come back one day. Because I was so far behind schedule after Colombia, and tied to an Inca trail date, flying has bought me 2 extra days at the coast that I would have had to spend on buses otherwise. Of course the flight has cost more than the buses would have but I have to admit, I’m happy to have shelled out those extra £50 not to be looking ahead to 40 hours on buses over 2 days. I got to spend that time in the sunshine on a few Pacific beaches. Worthwhile, I reckon.

 

Today I’m listening to: alt-J – ‘Tessellate’