Living in Peru : your everyday companion

Through the detailed travelogue Audre and Dimitri are keeping of their trip to Peru, we experienced their exciting and interesting visit to Arequipa and then joined them on their wonderful time in Lima.  After that we accompanied them on their adventure through Peru's Amazon. In this part of the travelogue we will join Audre and Dimitri as they travel to Northern Peru. If you missed out on the first, second or third part of their trip, click here for part I , here for part II and here for part III.

There is a lot of desert on the coast in Perú. It’s endless and only sometimes interesting. Our first stop north of Lima, however, was definitely very interesting. We had heard about the Caral archeological site on a BBC travel show. We learned that at km 160 of the Panamericana Norte, there was a 23 km unpaved road in good condition that would take us to Caral. We left Lima at 11 a.m. but didn’t arrive at Caral until 3:30 p.m. The unpaved road was very bad and so it took forever to get to the site.

We were pleased with an excellent guide, Segundo, and it was a very rewarding experience. Caral is 5000 years old. When the people of Caral were building their pyramids, the Egyptians were building theirs as well. Awesome. The site started being excavated in the 1990’s, the Peruvian sand and desert having preserved even the colors. The website is very well done too: www.caralperu.gob.pe We were given the jubilados entrance fee rate of S/.2 (under US$1). We shared the price of the guide with another couple so it was an additional S/.10 for us (a little more than US$3). All in all it was a great detour even though a small section of our back bumper fell off during the rough road ride to Caral.

We didn’t stop at the pyramid of Paramonga. We pressed on to Barranca to stay the night at the Hotel Chavin (Jr. Gálvez 222, fono: 235-2253, website: www.hotelchavin.com.pe). It was okay but only if you need a place for the night.

North of Lima the Panamericana Highway is routed through a series of small towns. After the first two times, the police stops started becoming quite annoying. After the toll booths or a the end of the towns, there was police vehicle and a policeman who would invariably waive us over.

The first two times, the policeman said something like having bikes on top of the car was illegal. At first Dimitri was differential; then the third time he said something like “What do you mean? They are in a secure rack made specifically for bikes.” The policeman told us to drive carefully and let us go. Another policeman just stopped us, asked where we were going and then let us go. In all of our driving in Perú, we found the section between Lima and Trujillo to be the absolute worst.

On the way back to Lima from Northern Perú, when Audre was driving, one policeman took Audre’s driver’s license and wasn’t going to give it back until we paid US$100 in a town many kilometers away. Eventually, we think that when they realize we aren’t about to be “shaken down”, they let us go. The drive from Barranca to Trujillo took 6 hours even though it was only 316 km.

The walls of the mud brick buildings along the highway are often painted white and the political ads of the alcaldes/mayors are painted, garishly. It’s awful; we would never vote for anyone that despoiled the countryside. The farther we got from Lima, the poorer the people looked and the junkier the cars. But there was very little traffic and the road was good.

Trujillo

In Trujillo we stopped at the Gran Hotel El Golf (Los Coateros 500, Urb El Golf) but it was expensive and they could not accommodate us for the entire Semana Santa. It looked like a resort where there would be lots of screaming kids anyway.

Our next stop was Hotel El Gran Marques (Diez de Cienfuegos 145-147, Urb. La Merced, Trujillo, Peru, fono (044) 249 366, e-mail: hotel@elgranmarques.com , web: www.elgranmarques.com) where we negotiated an unusual package. They gave us an executive suite which was a bedroom and a living room for about US$92 a day. That included the price of a "Body & Spa" package that we “had to” buy. The package included a Peruvian champagne and a massage for two at the hotel’s spa which we enjoyed immensely.

Although nine days in Trujillo was more than it warranted, it was a fine place to hang out during Semana Santa. We biked to Huanchaco twice and had a fine Sunday seafood lunch at El Mochica (Av. Larco 552, Huanchaco, fono: 461-1963) there. The weather was beautiful and warm.

We had worried about what the weather would be like in Trujillo while we were still in Lima. There were reports of El Niño rains and dengue fever in Trujillo. Fortunately we didn’t have any bad weather there.

On our bike ride to the beach town of Huanchaco, we stopped at Chan Chan, a fantastic archeological site. It was built by the Chimu as their capitol between AD 850 and 1470. The remains of the buildings are decorated with friezes of fish motives and designs that represent fishing nets. The importance of the sea reached “venerable proportions” for the Chimu, according to Lonely Planet. Dimitri loved Chan Chan.

Another day we went to Huaca Esmeralda and La Huaca Arco Iris (Huaca del Dragón)—small and not too interesting. A fun thing to do in Trujillo is to go to the central market. We got delicious fresh mango juice there.

A really great archeological site near Trujillo is Huacas del Sol y de la Luna. We paid S/.22 (around US$7) for the entrance fee and a guide. Our photos there are good.

Our favorite restaurant in Trujillo was only open for lunch. Restaurante Roman Rincón Criollo (E.E.U.U. 162, Urb. El Recreo, Trujillo, fono: 244-207, e-mail: spectrum@terra.com.pe) We were brought a complementary sarandaja, a bean dish with aji and parsley, that is often sold on the streets. We ordered picantes de camarones (camarones at this restaurant were whole and big prawns) and they were prepared in a slightly spicy sauce, a cau cau de camarones (a dish with shrimp tails in a tomato, potato sauce with palillo, a spice similar to tumeric and a mint-like herb called hierua buena), 4 Peruvian beers and 2 coffees for S/.116 (around US$30) with tip.

We toured the Urquiaga House with a lovely guide just to see what an 19th century house looked like. The house was not too interesting but the guide was nice. While walking around Trujillo we visited the Tourist Police and the Highway Police. All of them confirmed that there was nothing illegal about our bike rack on top of our car. The advice was to just show the police our foreign license with our paper permitting us to enter Perú with 2 bikes that we received at the border from the aduana/customs.

The most unusual museum we have ever been to was the Museo Cassinelli (Av. Nicolas de Pierola 607, fono: 282222) because it is under a Mobil gas station. Admission was S/.14 (just under US$5) and it included a charming guided tour. It is a very small space, packed with ceramics from most all of the periods and most all of the cultures of Northern Perú. We even saw ceramics from Cajamarca where we’d be going next.