Trujillo

A testament to ‘Peruvian Time’- very similar to Kimberley time actually, my plane from Arequipa was delayed by 5 hours and i very nearly missed my connecting bus to Trujillo. I arrived at the bus station, after tipping the taxi driver to speed me there, with 5 minutes to spare before the bus took off! Got on the bus and we were delayed by 2 hours along the way with road works. So my supposedly short journey was incredibly long! I arrived exhausted into Trujillo about 10am and checked in. The girls on the front desk then tried to sell me their tours, saying there was an English speaking group leaving today at 11am. They sold me into it, so i showered quickly and headed out on tour.

This was to be my first of 3 consecutive tours, as i met a great couple of people who were also touring with me, Kate and Mark from England and Rachel from Oregon, USA. So day 1 we went to the Sun and Moon temples and Chan Chan. Both are ruins located not far from the city of Trujillo itself. Day 2 we went to El Brujo, about an hour out of Trujillo and Day 3 we went to Chiclayo to visit the Sipan ruins, about 3 hours away. So by the end of the 3 days, i was all toured out, and ruined out!

All 3 days were very similar in some respects, in that we were seeing archaeological ruins. They were from different time periods though, but showed very very similar traits to the ancient Egyptians. I haven’t been to Egypt, i remember from studying them at school, and although in Egypt they have traditional pyramid structures, here it looked like mountains or just desert, but once they were excavated, they found ancient kings and queens buried with their treasure, servants, spouses, concubines etc. They were even slightly mummified, but not with bandages like in Egypt, but with cloth saturated in some sort of chemical to stop the bugs eating them. It was absolutely amazing! Every day was really different, but still similar, but all 3 sites were definitely worth the visit. The museum at Sipan was awesome, it is a pyramid shaped building and you start at the top and work your way down. Inside they had the King of Sipan’s remains and all of his jewellery. It was a brilliant museum, really showed and explained this ancient time period and showcased so much of the materials from that era.

It was great having Rachel, Mark and Kate with me too, we went for dinner each night together and had fun in the day at the sights. Hopefully i will catch up in Ecuador with them! But for now, I am off to Mancora for some long deserved sun and sand!