Sitting on the Bus about to leave Llamac, I had to once again marvel at the amazing dichotomy of Peruvian dress. Seated on a bench beneath my window was a little old woman of indeterminate age - it was clear that she was old, but given the hard lives led in some of these village, I was unsure of whether she was in her 60s or her 80s. This venerable old lady wearing the standard issue local hat, adorned with exotic feather in the hat band, from under which two steely grey plaits emerged tied together with a ribbon were they met in the middle of her back. On her top half she wore several layers of hand knitted tightly buttoned, brightly coloured cardigans. At her waist she had a fairly nondescript belt from which several keys dangled. Below the waist, her costume consisted of a umbrella of multi-layered skirts and petticoats. Her legs were covered in some heavy duty looking woolen tights and on her feet - the British burglar’s trainer of choice - the Reebok Classic!
Through the opposite window I was possible to see the road, where another, younger woman, was herding some donkeys, whilst wearing a pink velour tracksuit with boots!? Fashionable and practical - the perfect choice for a bit of light donkey work...Once again, my English reserve prevents me from taking picture directly of the local fashionistas.
On our return back to Huaraz, we went back to the Churup for a quick shower and change, before taking up our invite back to the Huascaran Tour Office for some “Pisco Sour” This is apparently a traditional Peruvian tipple - I guess it must go well with Guinea Pig.
The drink was prepared by Paulina, Huascaran´s owner, and consisted of egg white, sugar, some kind of brandy and lots of ice all mashed up together in a food processor. In spite of the egg, it didn´t taste to bad. After several of these, we left the office with a distinct glow and headed by taxi to the bus terminal.
The movil Terminal was not quite as fancy as the Cruz del Sur, but not far off - it still had bag a luggage check in area and stiff security regime, which I was glad of, when one of staff discovered that a fellow passenger was carrying a full on Dirty Harry style revolver. From the look of things, the fact that he had this obscene hand cannon, was not a problem, the problem was that he hadn´t filled in the appropriate forms - the Peruvians can´t get enough of paper based bureaucracy. So he was marched off to the front desk and forced to fill in a vast sheaf of paperwork in triplicate.
After the third attempt to get on the wrong bus, the “conductor” finally showed us onto the bus leaving for Trujillo. Failing to heed the gunman´s lesson, I suddenly remembered that in addition to the penkife in my pocket, I had my camping knife in the top of my rucksac. The security guard scanned me with his wand, which duly beeped when it passed over my pocket and bag. I had flash backs of trying to take an adjustable spanner on a US internal flight just after 911. Fortunately, however, Gingoes must not be considered inherently dangerous, as before I could say anything, he waved me through.
The bus was once again luxury standard, with on board meal (boxed this time, not hot like on CDS) and fully reclining seats. We arrived in Trujillo without incident but far too early to do anything, so we sat in the bus station and read for an hour or so.
We took a taxi to the next bus station, where we were able to deposit our large Rucksacks, reading the map wrong (This was all Kirsty...) we brushed past the the taxi drviers thronging round the exits, declining their offers of rides, telling them it was only 2 minute walk. By the time we had walked 10 minutes and were no nearer anything that looked like a Plaza de Armas, I asked a passing Trujillian, who gave me a puzzled look and pointed back the way we had come. Looking at the map again, we realised that bus station that we thought marked our place on the map was acutual that companies ticket office. This was as Kirsty had right said, only 5 minutes walk from the centre of town - unfortunately, we where at the bus terminal, which was serveral kilometres away. Embarrassed, we slunk past the waiting taxi drivers on the other sided of the road and haled a passing cab just round the corner.
From inside the cab, Trujillo looked just like the outskirts of central Lima: wide streets arranged in a grid format lined with workshops and cafes, pavements populated with litter and street vendors. All of this laid out under an oppressive sky of monotonous grey cloud.
We were dropped just short of the Plaza de Armas as the roads were closed by hoards of pistol carrying policemen. Existing the cab we walked the last hundred metres and found the streets lining the central square thronged with people watching a procession of military looking people, marching to a brass band. We watched for while as the uniformed marchers completed a lap only to be followed by a whole host of civilians, adults and children, carrying homemade banners. This went on for ages, and from what we could see consisted of everyone from the local football team (resplendent in their football shirts) to the Mother Union, and local pensioners lunch club.
Bored of the procession, we found a cafe for breakfast, where I made a mistake of smiling at the local drunk/character, who then tried to talk to us in some unintelligible local dialect. Once it was clear we had no idea what he was saying he then remonstrated loudly with the other diners - I assume to the effect that we were obviously foreign idiot who could not understand his lucid Spanish. They laughed - we smiled and left.
Through the opposite window I was possible to see the road, where another, younger woman, was herding some donkeys, whilst wearing a pink velour tracksuit with boots!? Fashionable and practical - the perfect choice for a bit of light donkey work...Once again, my English reserve prevents me from taking picture directly of the local fashionistas.
On our return back to Huaraz, we went back to the Churup for a quick shower and change, before taking up our invite back to the Huascaran Tour Office for some “Pisco Sour” This is apparently a traditional Peruvian tipple - I guess it must go well with Guinea Pig.
The drink was prepared by Paulina, Huascaran´s owner, and consisted of egg white, sugar, some kind of brandy and lots of ice all mashed up together in a food processor. In spite of the egg, it didn´t taste to bad. After several of these, we left the office with a distinct glow and headed by taxi to the bus terminal.
The movil Terminal was not quite as fancy as the Cruz del Sur, but not far off - it still had bag a luggage check in area and stiff security regime, which I was glad of, when one of staff discovered that a fellow passenger was carrying a full on Dirty Harry style revolver. From the look of things, the fact that he had this obscene hand cannon, was not a problem, the problem was that he hadn´t filled in the appropriate forms - the Peruvians can´t get enough of paper based bureaucracy. So he was marched off to the front desk and forced to fill in a vast sheaf of paperwork in triplicate.
After the third attempt to get on the wrong bus, the “conductor” finally showed us onto the bus leaving for Trujillo. Failing to heed the gunman´s lesson, I suddenly remembered that in addition to the penkife in my pocket, I had my camping knife in the top of my rucksac. The security guard scanned me with his wand, which duly beeped when it passed over my pocket and bag. I had flash backs of trying to take an adjustable spanner on a US internal flight just after 911. Fortunately, however, Gingoes must not be considered inherently dangerous, as before I could say anything, he waved me through.
The bus was once again luxury standard, with on board meal (boxed this time, not hot like on CDS) and fully reclining seats. We arrived in Trujillo without incident but far too early to do anything, so we sat in the bus station and read for an hour or so.
We took a taxi to the next bus station, where we were able to deposit our large Rucksacks, reading the map wrong (This was all Kirsty...) we brushed past the the taxi drviers thronging round the exits, declining their offers of rides, telling them it was only 2 minute walk. By the time we had walked 10 minutes and were no nearer anything that looked like a Plaza de Armas, I asked a passing Trujillian, who gave me a puzzled look and pointed back the way we had come. Looking at the map again, we realised that bus station that we thought marked our place on the map was acutual that companies ticket office. This was as Kirsty had right said, only 5 minutes walk from the centre of town - unfortunately, we where at the bus terminal, which was serveral kilometres away. Embarrassed, we slunk past the waiting taxi drivers on the other sided of the road and haled a passing cab just round the corner.
From inside the cab, Trujillo looked just like the outskirts of central Lima: wide streets arranged in a grid format lined with workshops and cafes, pavements populated with litter and street vendors. All of this laid out under an oppressive sky of monotonous grey cloud.
We were dropped just short of the Plaza de Armas as the roads were closed by hoards of pistol carrying policemen. Existing the cab we walked the last hundred metres and found the streets lining the central square thronged with people watching a procession of military looking people, marching to a brass band. We watched for while as the uniformed marchers completed a lap only to be followed by a whole host of civilians, adults and children, carrying homemade banners. This went on for ages, and from what we could see consisted of everyone from the local football team (resplendent in their football shirts) to the Mother Union, and local pensioners lunch club.
Bored of the procession, we found a cafe for breakfast, where I made a mistake of smiling at the local drunk/character, who then tried to talk to us in some unintelligible local dialect. Once it was clear we had no idea what he was saying he then remonstrated loudly with the other diners - I assume to the effect that we were obviously foreign idiot who could not understand his lucid Spanish. They laughed - we smiled and left.
With time to kill until the next night bus, we booked on a half day tour of Chan Chan and the surrounding attractions. According to the guide book, Chan Chan was some kind of epic ancient city, home to a prosperous pre-Inca civilisation. Having had the tour, I can now tell you that it is some large but crappy piles of sand and mud and a lot of local imagination. This civilisation existed around the time of the middle ages, had no written language and seemed to build most of its stuff from mud - which over the centuries has not lasted well. This has not stopped that locals inventing all kinds of information about the culture, and beliefs systems of these mud dwelling fisherman. In fact they have a museum full of frightening looking models and paintings depicting local customs and have even spent quite some time building mud structures of their own, which only after direct questioning did they admit were not the original structures - who cares the tourists will believe anything.
The tour was capped by a visit to the “beach” which was busy with local revelers, but for the most part grey and depressing. Following the tour we had dinner and headed to the bus station to wait.
The buses seem to be getting progressively worse with each leg of the journey, despite this, they are still head and shoulders above National Express. After another pleasant nights sleep, we arrived in Piura, where we broke the mold and took a day bus to cross the border. Inspite of the Lonely Planet warning of border crossing dangers, this was straight forward affair: Get off the coach on one side of the bridge, get passports stamped, walk to the other side of the bridge, admire Ecuadorean boarder guards nudie calendar, get passport stamped, get back on coach - job done.
We got to Loja in the evening, ate some dodgy chicken that tasted of frankfurters and got the night bus to Quito.
The tour was capped by a visit to the “beach” which was busy with local revelers, but for the most part grey and depressing. Following the tour we had dinner and headed to the bus station to wait.
The buses seem to be getting progressively worse with each leg of the journey, despite this, they are still head and shoulders above National Express. After another pleasant nights sleep, we arrived in Piura, where we broke the mold and took a day bus to cross the border. Inspite of the Lonely Planet warning of border crossing dangers, this was straight forward affair: Get off the coach on one side of the bridge, get passports stamped, walk to the other side of the bridge, admire Ecuadorean boarder guards nudie calendar, get passport stamped, get back on coach - job done.
We got to Loja in the evening, ate some dodgy chicken that tasted of frankfurters and got the night bus to Quito.
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