We arrived in Chiclayo on Monday evening after a long day travelling. The city is not very interesting in itself but from there we could visit the place where Lord Sipan was found, a burial site that in Peru is as important as the tomb of King Tutankhamen was for the riches in gold, silver and ceramics found with him. The quality of the ornaments considering they are nearly 2,000 years old is truly amazing, beautiful head-dresses and ear ornaments etc and the ceramic figures of all sorts of different animals were equally fantastic. We were also taken round the witches market in Chiclayo where you can buy almost any herb concoction you could imagine for any ailment, apparently many people do this before they will visit a doctor and when S asked our guide (the excellent Mercedes) we were assured that there were “black magic” items available but you had to ask for them. There was also the distressing sight of a chained monkey who would apparently tell your fortune.
The hotel in Chiclayo was, despite its 5 star rating, by far the worst we had encountered for the lack of friendliness of the staff and the poor management. The second morning when we came down for breakfast there was virtually no food left, we had to ask for everything in spite of the fact that there were loads of staff running around, and the packed lunch we were given for our journey south was nothing short of disgusting, stale rolls with huge slabs of pork and nothing else inside! However we did have an excellent meal the evening before in a restaurant recommended by Mercedes. The portions were enormous, S had ceviche which is the typical raw fish with lime and R had similar with grilled fish and langoustine, he declared it to be some of the best food he had ever had and the freshly mixed Pisco sour was delicious too!
In Chiclayo , we decided to send some things back home by post and the travel agency responsible for us in Peru (Coltur) were very helpful in making up a large parcel (nearly 7 kg) and then accompanying R to the post office. The parcel included some of the kit used on the trek and it was with some trepidation that R left this in the care of the Peruvian post office and the international postal system. However, all his doubts were unjustified and in fact the parcel arrived at 19 MPR only a couple of hours after we returned on 9 December.
We journeyed south to Trujillo stopping at another archaeological site called El Brujo on the way with coloured friezes still visible and the excellent museum contained the body of the Lady of Cao, a woman believed to be a noble lady on account of the treasures buried with her – the most amazing thing about her body is the fact that her skin is still visible including the tattoos etched upon her. We seem to be seeing a lot of dead bodies on our travels, mummies and skeletons, sometimes we wonder if it is right that these people are on display when they were buried with such care all those years ago.
Trujillo is a very attractive colonial town and our hotel in the main square a huge improvement on the last one, after a short exploration of the surrounding streets we went into the lobby to find the whole place full of Peruvian students of tourism, they were very interested in us and asked so many questions – all in Spanish – and even took photos of us with their mobiles so we felt like royalty! There are not many tourists in this part of Peru and we had the impression they had never met English people before.
Our second day in Trujillo began with the search for some more anti-malarial tablets, S had realized when in the jungle that the number of malarone we had with us was far short of what was needed (to cut a long story short the Gold Street surgery had stupidly only given R his own tablets when he asked for our medication at the desk) and with the help of Mercedes we had been trying to buy more here! Having established that malarone does not exist in Peru she took us first to the teaching hospital in Trujillo to ask about alternatives, then to the main hospital (quite an experience, we were glad we weren’t staying!) where they told us that there were no anti-malarials available in Trujillo, then to a pharmacy who told us the same thing! Meanwhile we visited the temples of the sun and the moon, the latter again containing the most magnificent coloured friezes on several different levels from the Moche period and another temple called the rainbow temple which was equally impressive. S then decided to telephone Gold Street in the UK about the malarone or lack of them and when she asked if they still had some for us was told “yes you owe us £69!” ie her tablets were still in the UK! Having established that the National Health Service were not going to courier them over (!) she then got the name of an alternative ie doxycyclin and the dosage from the practice nurse, finally R decided we should try another pharmacy where we found that yes indeed these were available and we were now armed with sufficient tablets to cover us. Quite a saga and the moral of the story is never trust your GP surgery, count the tablets before you go and make sure you have the correct number, quite how the surgery didn’t have the foresight to hand over all the tablets is beyond us.
Lunch was taken in the oddly named “Big Ben” restaurant in a town called Huanchaco on the seafront, a surfers paradise and also a place where the fishermen still use the traditional reed boats “caballitos” which you can see lined up along the beach. The afternoon visit was to Chan Chan which is the largest adobe city in the world, only one small part of it is open to the public and it was a very impressive sight, diamond shaped bricks and intricate designs – a lot of restoration and maintenance is needed as in all these sights as there is so much danger of erosion and damage from sun, sand rain etc.
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