Trujillo & Mancora, Peru

After spending many weeks in the Andean highlands, Nicola and I were looking forward to kissing goodbye to the altitude and embracing some seaside sunshine.

Travelling with our Ozzy friends, Scott and Georgie, our first stop along the Pacific coast of Peru was the city of Trujillo. The main reason for stopping there was for the Pre-Inca archeological sites, just outside the city. We set up base in a beach town called 'Huanchaco', just outside of Trujillo, and set off to learn some more south american history. We visited three sites that all once belonged to the 'Chivu' people before they were ruthlessly conquered by the Inca's: 'The Temple of the Dragon', 'The Temple of Esmerelda' and the most impressive of all, the city of 'Chan Chan'. The temple sites were like mini pyramids with mud carvings on the side. Unfortunately, there were no guides or information for us to read so we had to make our own mind up on what had happened there. 'Chan Chan' was much more informative and we had a guided tour that helped us to realise that the 'Chivu' were equally as interesting and intelligent as the Inca's.

Chan Chan was built around 850AD, about 400 years before the Inca's, and it is famous for being the biggest adobe city in the world. I didn't know what 'adobe' meant either so for those ignorant people like me, it means a city built out of natural materials like mud, sand etc. In all honesty, it was a surprisingly impressive site. We didn't realise how big it actually was. It was 20km square in size and was once comprised of 9 small citadels that each had their own king. Each citadel only had one entrance and was surrounded by a 14m high perimeter wall. It was like a giant maze. Over hundreds of years a lot of it has been eroded away but it was still impressive and made for a really interesting day. My favourite ruthless fact was that each king would have a wife along with several concubines (bits on the side) who, upon his death, would all be killed and buried along with him! I guess it was a time when it paid to be ugly. Maybe this explains why most Peruvian women are so ugly because the Chivu wiped out the blood line of all the hotties.

Trujillo itself was nice enough with an old colonial square but it wasn't really built for tourism. We walked around the centre for over an hour and couldn't find one bar to have a drink in! Clearly we had ventured off the gringo trail which became even more apparent whenever we had to hitchhike a lift in and out of town. That was all to be short lived however, as we moved on after a few days to the beach resort of Mancora.

Mancora is the main sun holiday destination in Peru and is at the top of its north coast, near the Equador border. Like with many of Peru's microclimates, the temperature changed dramatically after one overnight bus and we were blessed with 5 days of 30 degree sunshine. The town itself is set up for surfers and lined with beach bars full of gringos. It certainly wasn't the cultural experience of the trip, but was definitely fun and relaxing nonetheless. Our hostel was lovely. For a massive £10 a night we had our own bungalow with a communal pool that was a mere 50 metres from the sea. By night we went out and shared drinking games with all that we met. By day we nursed hangovers and tried to soak up some sun. All in all a really fun week and a great way to say goodbye to Peru.

We now head into Equador, the 8th country of the trip so far. We start with the city of Cuenca in the south, before heading to the capital of Quito in the North. There we will meet Joe and head out for what will surely be the highlight of the whole trip 'The Galápagos Islands'.

Harry & Nicola

Copa Del Sh*thead Scoreboard: NH 130 - 145 HF