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Our drive into Peru took all day despite being 312km, this was partly due to a lengthy border crossing. The ´exit` point from Ecuador was several km before the border which was quite straight forward. However the actual border was in the middle of the town of Huaquillas. The road was one lane in each direction and vehicles had to queue to get through, consequently the town was gridlocked. The truck had to be exported from Ecuador and imported into Peru and the border official wanted a bribe for the privilage eventhough out tour leader had to show him which boxes to stamp! As passengers our ´entry` point into Peru was several km on from the border and by the time we got through the whole process had taken 2 hours!
Our first stop in Peru was in the small coastal town of Punta Sal where we camped on the beach. We had a campfire on the beach one evening complete with toasted marshmallows!
The landscape of northern Peru is quite barren and also flat in places, a large proportion of our 590km drive to Huanchaco was through desert. That day we saw sunrise and sunset on the truck! We visited a museum on the way of the finds of the Royal Tombs of Sipán in Lambayeque. Our time in Huanchaco was to be able to visit the ancient mud brick city of Chan Chan which has had a lot of reconstruction work to show how it would have been. We also went to the Moche temples known as the Sun and Moon Pyramids. These are still being excavated but the carvings and paintings are displayed in the conditions they were found in. Huanchaco is also famous for its reed boats which the local fishermen use for fishing. Boats is perhaps an incorrect way to describe them though as there is nowhere to sit inside them, they are rather straddled like riding a horse.
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