19) Cajas here we come!

The taxi arrived at 6.30am. Annoyingly we'd had to pack up all of our stuff to take with us, including all the bits that we wouldn't need in the field. With our rucksacks slung in the back of the pickup we were ferried to the bus station where we paid the $1.50 for our tickets to the park. The bus wasn't bad and for an hours drive was damn cheap. The change in temperature was instantly noticeable when we were deposited outside the "Toreadora" section of the park. Nearby was the small refuge, recognisable from the pencil drawing on Paul's ´85 paper, though thankfully with a proper roof as oppose to the thatched one from back in the day.
Inside was a compact but functional kitchen and table, 3 rooms with bunk beds, and upstairs was a loo (minus the seat) and the gaurds quaters. It was by no means warm inside the refuge and you certainly felt it on your cheeks on the toilet, but was at least out of the wind.
Me and Jamie claimed the bunks by the kitchen, unloaded some of our stuff and waited outside with Alejandra for our guide called Wilson Puya, funnily enough.

This guy knew what we were in for

A short and stocky chap came over and introduced himself as Wilson. He would be taking us to the mapped areas to help find some suitable wetlands for Alejandra's work. He started limbering up and I wondered what we were getting ourselves into. Out of the refuge area we were met by a herd of llamas blocking the road. After shooing them off back into the park we followed Wilson slowly along the busy road bisecting the park until we reached a sign denoting a path for us to follow, and as soon as we got onto uneven terrain Wilson upped the pace so that it was a swinging arms kind of walk to follow. It wasn't a very well trodden path, and before long I was swerving left and right of deep muddy pools and leaping over boggy land. Before I go on I should mention that the park is absolutely stunning. It's very different from the "puna" terrain we were working on in Peru, with much greater diversity of plants and geography, and contains over 200 glacial lakes. From the moment we'd entered the background noise of cars faded, and was replaced with a constant ribbeting of unseen frogs, the trickle of countless streams and the wind whistling through the grasses. It's pretty special.
We trekked for a good couple of hours until we hit a sign pointing N,E,S,W. Here we had some options apparently. South read "Moderate, 3 Hours" North (the way we came) "Moderate 2 Hours" West "Difficult 6 Hours" and East "Difficult 8 Hours". Well you can imagine which one we took. At Cajas, when they say "Dificil" they aren't fucking around. They don't mean "Not suitable for wheelchair users", they mean "Not suitable for anyone other than hardy mountain goats with something to prove".

"Wilson I'm sorry!"

We followed Wilson up and over tall ridges, down near verticle grassy slopes, through deep and drenching bogs and streams, over white water rivers, through Polylepis woodland and along cliff edges for hours. At the start we joked that we each had three "lives" for slipping over, and I'd burned through mine in the first 4 hours, as had everyone else.
At one point Wilson slipped off of a rock and nearly rolled off a cliff edge, and I have to say I was a little disappointed that I couldn't scream "WILSOOOOON" like Tom Hanks on Castaway, but that's just because my brain was fried from concentrating on the ground for so long. Also, since I'd recovered from my bout of explosively discharging food my stomach had gotten quite used to the idea of lunch and was protesting loudly at missing it. We stopped briefly at one of the enormous lakes; "Mamamac" and Wilson pointed out a rocky outcrop we could camp on, telling us we wouldn't even need a tent (fat chance).

Level: Jurassic park

It was another 3 hours of navigating all sorts of obstacles before we hit the end of the trail and the guard post at this entrance to the park. The hike had been quite fun, but damn exhausting. If someone had asked me if I wanted to walk for nearly 8 hours I'd have told them to do one, but we had all managed it and had seen a lot more of the park than the average tourist does. At the gaurd post we plonked down in rocking chairs and assessed the damage. All caked in mud, feet sopping and knees creaking, we chowed down on our food stash. Turns out 50c noodles don't include flavouring but they disappeared soon enough. The next issue was getting back to Toreadora. Luckily shortly after setting off down the road a pickup came trundling by and stopped for us to hitch a ride. We climbed up into the back of it and we were off. The cobbled road wasn't exactly forgiving on the derriere, but I was glad of the lift because the route back to the main road was a good 15 minute drive and it was also quite nice looking back and watching the scenery retreat as we bumped along. As we approached the main road it started spitting with rain. The truck was going right and we needed left so we hopped out but Wilson stayed in; his days work was done. We crossed over as the rain really started and hoped to hitch back up to Toreadora. It was a long and fruitless wait, gradually reaching that "wet as possible" threshold as even buses raced by. Thankfully after half an hour one did stop, and we dragged our sopping wet and aching bodies inside. It was a further 20 minutes drive back to the refuge. Getting inside I threw my stuff down and changed immediately into some dry clothes though it was still cold, and by now getting dark. There were a new couple around the table, a Dutch woman and an Italian-Ecuadorean. We ate our soup and chatted with them to will away the time in the freezing refuge. The man was very animated and also spoke good English, and he was particularily impressed by the English culture of drinking from 7am - 6am. We spent the evening watching our breath come out in clouds, talking mostly in Spanglish (switching between the two at random), and drinking several cups of tea to keep our hands warm.
Come 10.30 we all retired citing early starts to do the same thing again tomorrow.
I slept badly due to my feet being frozen solid and the Dutch woman getting up to chunder a few times.

18) Sorting out the paperwork

I'd awoken with what I thought was plenty of time (15 mins) and was stood outside the room taking advantage of the wifi. Someone said something in Spanish and I automatically replied "Buenas" as is custom before returning my attention to facebook. I felt like a mug when what was in fact Alejandra then said "Are you Tom", and apologised for being so rude.
We hastily got ready and settled on heading to Chipotle for some breakfast. On the way Alejandra told us about herself; 35 and trying to get into the UK to begin her PhD on the paramo wetlands of Ecuador under Paul Ramsay at Plymouth, but currently having some difficulty with the English exam. I don't think she was particularily impressed with Chipotle and I could appreciate that as it was food aimed at gringos, so we agreed to go to the market for lunch. We sat and drank coffee and discussed plans. Essentially she was as clueless as we were with regards to us being able to work in "El Cajas" National Park in the nearby mountains, but shortly after that very conversation she had an excited phonecall. We were to meet a couple of guys from the park authorities to discuss what we could do and where. The park is owned by ETAPA; a company that seems to pretty much run Cuenca (I don't know if they are nationwide). They control the communications, electricity and water supply to the city and surrounding areas, their main source of water is the park, and we were to meet them at their Cuenca HQ at 11am.
We found our way there with quite some ease and went up some ten flights of stairs to a posh looking office to wait for Jose and Pablo. Alejandra explained that Ecuador has a notorious reputation for pointless bureaucracy, sometimes as a cover for corruption, but that ETAPA are a good egg. Jose showed up and we went to a meeting room to thrash out the details in Spanish that was entirely beyond my comprehension, though what I did get was that they would rather have Alejandra map three different areas of the park than three different wetlands in Ecuador. I could see where they were coming from as the park is huge and has all sorts of variations in geography and influences of weather, altitude and the pacific ocean but it was dragging the meeting out. They eventually caved and we agreed to meet Pablo again at 2pm to decide on some possible paramo sites to check out.

Alejandra took us to the bustling market for lunch, and persuaded me to try "Tomales". I don't know whether these are strictly Mexican, but they are meat and ground corn wrapped in banana leaves and steamed. They weren't particularly overwhelming but certainly different. It wasn't long before we were on our way back to ETAPA and sat at the top of the stairs waiting for their arrival. Alejandra went on to explain that time keeping isn't big on the average Ecuadorean's agenda, and it isn't uncommon to meet up to an hour past the time agreed. 30 minutes later and we were in Pablo's rather nice office looking at a satellite view of the park. He was layering all sorts of things onto it including weather and altitude, and after quite some time and a fair bit of yawning on my part, we'd ended up with a paper map with several circles indicating potential wetlands (or "humidals") to hike to when we hit Cajas. There was also some talk of continuing Puya work, and Pablo told us he was undertaking a PhD and he'd take us to his university to meet the experienced botanist that was his supervisor to gain more insight.
We followed him to his suprisingly expensive 4x4 and drove the short distance to the Universidad de Azuay just outside of the new town. I kept my eyes peeled but no sign of an SU to get plastered in, and the place had more of a secondary school feel than a uni. We headed upstairs to the Herbarium, which was pretty cool actually - Plymouth doesn't have a Herbarium that I'm aware of! We wandered through the aisles randomly opening lockers and checking out the handi work of students such as the few girls in the main part that were preparing new reference samples. Pablo introduced us to his professor who looked remarkably similar to a friend back home, if a few shades darker. He sat and talked for thousands of years about every last plant that you would find in Cajas, and then Pablo got out his laptop and showed us a paper of Paul Ramsays from 1985. It was funny to see, with pencil drawings of the crew and refuge, and I was surprised that Paul had lead the expedition in question aged 21, just a few months older than me!
After flicking through the paper we were dropped back near the hostel and went to a small cafe to eat our final meal before our mission to the park the following morning.

17) Further exploration

Wednesday came round all of a sudden and I made a determined effort to see more of the city because Alejandra was due to arrive the next day. I found a cafe with pictures of pancakes on the door and that sold it for me. Inside the place was totally bizarre, consisting of royal looking sofas, a large American jukebox, an assortment of things on the walls ranging from guns to license plates, and in the middle a cage containing two pampered budgies. I plonked myself down (though not on one of the sofas), the only person in there aside from a young girl behind the counter. I ordered myself an American breakfast, not really sure what would come out and wandered around the place finding more oddities including a boxing challenger thing and a billiards room. When it did arrive I was impressed. Coffee, fresh pineapple juice, a stack of pancakes with a bottle of syrup and a separate plate of scrambled eggs and bacon. If every American breakfast is like this it's easy to see why they're notoriously large.

Quirky place for brekkie

Waddling out at midday I made my way back to the river trail and followed it down to Parque Pumapungo. Through the fence I could see llamas and hear all sorts of birds and it looked pretty cool. What I couldn't see was the entrance. A woman walking the opposite way approached as though I was going to explode, and I asked where the entrance was. She quickly replied that it was up around the corner before hurrying off and I double checked that I wasn't wearing a hockey mask or wielding a machete. By "round the corner" she actually meant a kilometer or so up a hill around two corners, behind the Ministry of Culture building. I decided to check out inside first, because entry was free. They took my bag and passport number and I set about exploring the building. It's really fantastic in there, 4 levels of Ecuadorian history and culture charmingly exhibited. The first floor contained interactive pre-colonial exhibits in English and Spanish, and even braille, and across the hall were lots of very weird art models of people with some drastically enhanced features. Some had massive hands, some had huge saggy boobs with babies hanging off of them. It was all very strange. Upstairs was back to normality, lots of stuff about the people through the ages and the indigenous in the Amazonian basin. I was suprised at how empty the place was of people because it was all very cool. Maybe I'm just a massive nerd, but they had shrunken heads on display, who doesn't find that cool?

Part of Pumapungo

On the top floor there was a cafeteria, public library, and lots of glass walled offices where you could watch people work on items for exhibits and such like.
The basement level was all about Ecuadorian currency since the start of coinage, but was all in Spanish. I read the bits I could and it was pretty interesting. Before the US Dollar, the Ecuadorean currency was the Sucre, and you could see throughout the 20th century the increasing rate of inflation through the bills displayed. The final bill displayed was the 500,000 Sucre note, common come the end of the century. In 2000 they finally broke and switched to the buck.

These latinos can GARDEN

I spent a lot longer than anticipated inside and moseyed out into the afternoon sunshine into the park. Considering it is only just outside of the city centre it is enormous. Perched on top of a hill are more stone ruins of temples to Sun Gods and whatnot that the ancient cultures worshiped. Though these are just really the foundations it's still neat to stand amongst them and soak in all the ancientness (definitely a word). At the foot of the hill down a winding track there is an area dedicated to growing the various native crops of the Andes, and a wide variety of ornamental shrubs and trees. The park attracts lots of wildlife, and I sat on a bench for a while watching the many birds and insects darting about the foliage, convinced I'd seen a couple of hummingbirds (Green violetear are the ones here). They didn't reappear so I followed the track through a wooded area and that's when I spotted one again. I tried for ages to get a decent photo and at one point it was in the tree directly above me. Staring upwards and trying hopelessly with my cheap digital camera to hold it steady for it to move into a better position, I watched as a cascade of poop splattered onto the plant next to me and across my left shoulder. He knew what he had done, and with that sped off again leaving me cursing the sky, photo-less. The rest of the park was equally as beautiful and well kept, and included several big aviaries housing parrots, toucans and other exotic birds all of various species. It was a short walk from the birds section to a hill covered in llamas, each tied to a post and quite happy just chewing the cud. I didn't fancy petting one though because they stank, so made my way back up to the culture ministry and out of the park.
The way back to the old town took me past the university of Cuenca, where I was met with interested stares from students - a lone gringo wandering through their patch. Their uni only has one bar bless them, though to be fair to them it was packed out. I made my way back into the old town and stopped of in the Cultural Museum of the Indigenous. It's a privately owned affair, and the lady buzzed me in and handed me a booklet to read as I guided myself around their collection. Personally I don't think it was worth the $2. There were a few interesting articles including one ancient groups obsession with making statues of deformed children, but it was mostly pots and all the typical stuff like bits of flint and things, and it wasn't long before I was on my way back to the hostel.
That evening I ate "Seco de pollo" at a resturant beneath the grand central cathedral and it was as beautiful as the city it was constructed in. Another early night followed as Alejandra was expected at 9am so no 10am lie in for me!

16) Cuenca

Sorry for the late posting, I've been out of range and very wet and cold for a few days!
As I mentioned, Cuenca is pretty impressive aesthetically. However the narrow cobbled streets of the old town and constant stream of traffic cause quite a build up of exhaust fumes which is not pleasant, particularily when one of the great big public buses trundles by belching a cloud of black smoke into your face (they don't have thousands of minivans as in Peru). It is a small price to pay though. In the middle of the two main streets; Simon Bolivar and Marsical Sucre, there is a huge plaza covered in towering trees and benches and fountains, and in front is the remarkable three-domed Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception.
We wandered around for a place to get breakfast and a few blocks across from the central hub, we found "Chipotle", a small bar with a fantastic American sounding menu, they even had hash browns! Hash browns!!

Central Plaza

After breakfast Jamie went back to the hostel and I headed across the road to "Mercado de 10 Augosto". It was huge! Across two levels were countless stands selling just about everything. The second floor consisted mostly of an assortment of food vendors and fruit and vegetable traders. So many colours, and so many things I'd never seen before. There are four types of banana here! I drifted through in a bit of a daze amongst an amalgam of people calling out their wares and bartering and the constant hum of conversation.
Towards the back I found a stall with a barbers chair and a woman painting her nails. I bit the bullet, pointed at my hair and she nodded. For $2 she tidied me up, though I couldn't get across that I wanted the beard gone and when she was waving the straight razor around my face like a sword I didn't really want to interject.

River walk

That afternoon I got a map from the helpful hostel lady and she explained where a lot of stuff was. Our hostel was between the two main streets of the old town and not too far away from the centre. Later on we wandered down Calle Larga; the main street for bars and discotecas, and went to eat at a place called "Wunderbar". $6 and three courses later we couldn't help but stay for a little longer to enjoy the cheap beers of happy hour before retiring.

RING THE BELL OMINOUSLY

The next day I planned to get up early to explore Cuenca more but found myself wandering out of the hostel at 11 to find some breakfast. I went up and down the main streets and settled on a chicken empanada (pasty) and a cup of that irresistable South American coffee and an alfahore in a small bakery down a side street. There are lots of shops in Cuenca selling all sorts of things as it's quite touristy. I stopped in a few and bought a postcard for Nan back home, asked for directions to the post office and set about trying to find it. An hour or so later, the card sent, I took a stroll towards the bottom of town. There was a sign pointing to some ruins and after a 10 minute walk I found them at the bottom of  a steep hill near a busy roundabout. They were pretty piss poor even for ruins, consisting of a few arrangements of stones behind a wall and a locked gate. It took me another 10 minutes to get back across the road and up towards the town again. I followed another sign towards a museum called CIDAP. Goodness knows what it stands for but the building was grand and situated on the river. It was quiet and I couldn't work out where to go so just headed up some stairs into the building. I'm fairly sure it wasn't the museum. There were a lot of people hurrying around and I think they were preparing for some sort of exhibition. I looked pretty out of place but no one said anything so I continued to plod about trying to keep out of the way. There were several peices of art floating about and a few things for sale made from hemp and things, not that there appeared to be anywhere to buy them. Through the back was an office and that's when I realised I was clearly in the wrong place and made a silent exit. On the way out I found a locked door downstairs with Museo written above it. It was only 4pm but closed already. Peering through the windows it looked to be all clothes and jewlery from the various indigenous peoples of Ecuador so I wasn't too disappointed. Heading back up to the town I stopped at the building next to Chipotle as I'd noticed a few people taking pictures of it the previous morning. Heading down the dimly lit hallway was a little eerie, and at the end was a sign on the wall. It read " IF YOU WANT TO SEE THE STORE RING THE BELL THREE TIMES" in English. It was like something out of a goosebumps video but I figured I'd go for it anyway, and pressed the button near the door the required three times. A dog started barking and a few moments later there was creaking of stairs. A tiny old woman opened the door and explained that the shop was closed for the day and to come back tomorrow. Despite the dingey hallway it looked light and airy inside, dominated by a large central staircase. I apologised to the woman and she replied "No problem" before chuckling to herself something about gringos. I left, glad I hadn't ended up part of a horror plot, and headed across the road to a store containing all sorts of expensive homely things. The contents of this shop looked like they could total the cost of the whole of Huaraz, and I didn't linger for fear of breaking something worth more than my soul.
That evening we headed back to Chipotle to take advantage of their happy hour. A few gin and tonics in and we met a couple of delightful American girls; Renee and her friend Hayley. They were here as part of a year for their degree programmes. Degrees are a lot different in the states it would seem! We chatted for ages, and they explained that Thursday through to Saturday nights were the best to go out in Cuenca. I didn't realise the time until the barman came over and handed us the bill before stacking up chairs around us. We left feeling a lot merrier than we perhaps should have been and agreed to join them for their friends 21st the following week...

15) Getting Fleeced at the Border

The bus arrived into Tumbes at 9 in the morning and it was already sweltering. We planned to get breakfast before finding a bus station to catch a ride to the other side, but a taxi driver told us he knew of a bus straight to Cuenca. We followed him out to his Tuk tuk, threw our stuff in the back and hopped in. He was fat and jovial, and quite talkative. Before long he stopped and told us we'd do the next bit by car, and that's when alarm bells should have started ringing.

The car we got into wasn't marked as a taxi, and there was already one guy in there but being the foolish gringos we were, we put our stuff in the back and got in. I felt a little uneasy and tried asking as many questions as I could, which he kept answering. He told us they would take us across the border because it was confusing to walk across and not very safe, and then for $50 dollars we would also get our tickets for the bus direct to Cuenca.
We got near to the border and pulled into a carpark, getting out he began demanding the fee. I  told him I'd like to have my ticket first but he said we'd need to walk to the ticket office, saying to follow a new man who'd appeared. It was all very unnerving so we grabbed our stuff close, handed over the cash and began following the new guy into the crowd, already sure we'd never see the ticket. 

The border between the two countries is utterly manic with busy cramped markets of mingling people squished between tall ugly buildings, so we kept close to the guy but all of a sudden we were told to follow someone else. He lead us to a new taxi and told us to take it to get our passports stamped but I'd had enough. He wanted us to pay the taxi man and I was having none of it since we'd forked out a lot of cash already. We started arguing and some nearby people got involved, but I couldn't really understand what any of them were saying. This drew the attention of a nearby policeman who came over to intervene. As I was explaining the situation, I realised that the man who we'd been following had melted into the crowd. We'd been bloody robbed.

The policeman showed us which taxi to get to go to immigration control and sent us on our way. Goodness knows where the other taxi would have taken us but I've a feeling we wouldn't have been left with our bags.

The border control area was 10 minutes drive away and in the middle of nowhere. It's a big complex, but was empty when we arrived pissed off and very sweaty. Jamie had outstayed his visa and had to pay an extra $12, luckily I didn't because I had no dollars whatsoever, and now no money to exchange.

We asked the taxi driver where we could get a bus to Cuenca, and he took us back to Huanquillas where we'd driven through to get to border control. The bus to Cuenca cost $7, considerably less than what we'd been expecting, foolishly thinking $50 would have been the going rate, but it was a damn sight better than El Sol and even air conditioned thank God.

It took us 5 hours to get to Cuenca and the journey was different to those in Peru. For one thing the driver was much less ambitious when it came to overtaking. The scenery was absolutely stunning; mountains all around covered in lush vegetation, and the occassional grand looking house nestled in the trees. Another instantly obvious difference to Peru is the lack of constant horns blaring, and the trip was oddly calm.

We found ourselves at the bus station with a line of pretty immaculate yellow cabs waiting patiently, and hopped in one to the hostel Alejandra (our PhD Student contact) had recommended. By then it was late Sunday afternoon, and Cuenca was mostly quiet. It felt considerably more developed than anywhere we'd experienced in Peru.
We checked into the hostel, it was basic but only $7 a night and so say had hot water so I wasn't about to complain. Admittedly the shower the girl had pointed to when she said "Always hot water" was different to the one across the hall, but I naively assumed it would be throughout. It was cold, very very cold. Someone somewhere was putting effort into cooling this water down infact, and it came out like a riot hose. Needless to say I left 5 minutes later gasping for breath but feeling somewhat refreshed. Trying to find a place to eat was quite difficult, and all the ATMs I tried failed to recognise my card which was really frustrating, but eventually we stumbled across a place called "Chicago Pizza" which conviniently accepted mastercard. I had a fantastic calzone (hardly Ecuadorean I know) and then we wandered the streets some more trying to find our way back to the hostel. Cuenca is stunning, even in the dark. The old town where we were staying is in a grid format like US cities, which should make it easy to find your way back but in fact, everywhere looks more or less the same. We passed several grand looking churches and many perfectly maintained colonial buildings along the cobbled streets, and after about half an hours aimless turning corners, found ourselves back at the hostel. It was only 9pm, but dark inside apart from a weird shrine in the corner with a candle lit. I wearily hit the hay and the bed was perfect, leaving me out like a light.

 

14) Leaving Huanchaco

It better not be down that road...
FUCK it's down that road

Cont.
I got my ticket and spent a couple of hours touring the ruins. They are certainly a spectacle to behold. It was knocked up by the Chimor, a pre-Incan civilisation and they did a pretty good job of it too, though I honestly do not know what they were looking at when they carved the birds into the stonework because they are a pretty shit representation. The fish are good though, and it's all well preserved after it got abandoned when the Incas did turn up. For S5 (about 1.50) you get a ticket to 4 different archeological sites, and once I'd finished Chan Chan, I haggled with a taxi driver to take me to the other 3 then back to Huanchaco. The first stop was the Dragon Temple. It's not very big at all and situated slap bang in the middle of a busy urban area, but is pretty none the less and does offer some good views from the top. I suppose it is called the dragon temple for all the dragons carved into it and not because they sacraficed dragons there.
Next was another temple, again in an urban area and contained in what felt like a cheap car park! It is bigger than the dragon temple and slightly better preserved. There was only me and one other man there, who said he'd seen me on the trek to Chan Chan. He was an architect and had some impressive drawings of the masonry and carvings. We had a short conversation in a mix of broken Spanish and English; he'd never heard of the Puya before! I left him to his work and the final stop was the museum of Chan Chan. It is well kept and apart from Chan Chan, probably the only one worth visiting. It gave a history of the area and displayed many things found during the excavation. I bought a souvenir of the ridiculous looking bird and headed back to Huanchaco.

So sacred

There I toured the town some more, visiting a beautiful church on the hill above the town. It was quaint and surrounded by lush gardens, each pillar covered in declarations of love between young couples. I sat for a while admiring the view whilst a man clanged the bell every minute or so with two rocks. There was a parade going on somewhere in the town (they do love their parades), and it was getting closer. About 5 minutes later I realised I was in the middle of a funeral, when the casket started making a beeline for the church. I scarpered sharpish, though I didn't look particularily out of place. I don't know if it's standard for funerals but I hope it is. What seemed to be about half the townsfolk had been parading through town with the coffin followed by a brass band which were belting out some cracking tunes. There were tonnes of people following in tow, none dressed formally and the whole affair seemed light hearted. I certainly wouldn't mind going out that way.
I descended to the beach and strolled along the peir, watching some Pelicans feed for a while and people fishing en masse off the peir. Before long I found Jamie in a bar on the beach and we sat for a while relaxing and watching a wounded Pelican amble slowly down the beach past all the crowds of people. It stopped a few feet from us because the bar owners hairless mutt was barking frantically at it. When it got near though, the bird stretched its humungous wings and the dog shat a brick and shut up then. I went back up to the church to watch the sunset over the horizon, and the bloke was back clanging the bell again.
It was to be my last sunset in Peru, but with each clang it felt like it was the last sunset ever.

You're coming back tomorrow...right?

We ate a decent meal at the hostel with Erik, said our goodbyes and took a taxi to the bus station. We were cutting it fine, and first of all stopped at the wrong station illiciting some panic. We needn't have worried though, we got to the "El Sol" station with 15 minutes to spare, but didn't end up setting off for another 45. This was more megabus right here. The attractive stewardesses of Movil Tours had been swapped for a balding, moustachioed man with a beer belly, and the bright orange seats were squashed in tight. The 12 hours passed slowly, and the interior of the bus was roughly a thousand degrees. I sat there with my legs being squished by the woman in front, sweating slowly, trying to find an arrangement of my appendages that didn't cause too much pain. Oh well, onward to Tumbes.

13) A day or two in Huanchaco

After the exceptional anticucho and intestines, we bode farewell to Oscar and Yanet and got on our bus to Trujillo. The company was Movil Tours, and although it was still cheap, it was clear we were paying a tad extra for the bus stewardesses and their impressively short skirts. Again, the quality surpassed anything you could get in the UK, providing more comfort than travelling trans atlantic.
We arrived in Trujillo at 5.30am and took a taxi to the nearby town of Huanchaco where we'd reserved a room at Hostel My Friend. It was quite dead when we got there, but a short walk from the beach so we wandered down to the sea and sat and ate peanut butter and jam sandwhiches as dawn approached. It was a really nice beach, and there were quite a few joggers about, including one old man who appeared to be sleep walking as oppose to jogging before hitting the deck and doing 30 minutes of impressive yoga and push ups before wandering into the sea. I did check and I wasn't hallucinating.

The beach front is lovely...

About 8.30 a young man and woman approached and started chatting to me in decent English, and it was too late by the time I realised... Jehovas...
I was reading Hawking's "A Brief History of Time", and when he asked why I didn't have faith in God, I explained that I read books such as this and studied science. He scoffed when I told him I believed in Evolution, but it was quite nice having a conversation with someone other than Jamie anyway so I entertained him with his persistent questions for a while.
Shortly after we went to the hostel just in time for them to start opening and clearing up after what looked to have been quite the party. The first thing the guy did was offer us a plethora of drugs, and then told us the room would not be ready for some time. We dumped our stuff, had a decent representation of an English breakfast, then headed back to the beach to bask in the sun. It was bloody hot, and at 1pm the room was ready so I took a shower before heading out again to wander around the town. The hostel offered surf lessons but I was not keen being the poorly coordinated mess that I am, instead choosing to get my bearings.
Along the beach front a local man stopped and chatted to me for a while, first about MotoGP, then about how silly I was for staying in Huanchaco when all the hot chicas were in Trujillo, and then about how I should make time to visit Colombia because the cocaine there is much cheaper than in the UK. I lied about having to meet some friends, thanked him for his advice, and made a note to take another route back to the hostel.
Huanchaco is really nice, a small fishing town which is up and coming on the tourist scene due to the decent surf, hot weather and long stretch of beach. It hugs the coast and if you go further than the 7 or so streets of it's width there is nothing but barren sand dunes and the baking sun. I got back to the hostel and headed to the terrace to find Jamie. There we met two Americans and a Canadian and introduced ourselves. The San Diegites (or whatever), Cody and Steve, were on their way to Lima, and Erik the Canadian was here to stay for a while. They were good guys and Cody told us that San Diego is the place to be for bio-tech, and we chatted for ages before heading down to the resturant for a beer before they left.

...the area around Huanchaco is pretty desolate

That night the band that had played at the hostel were playing again at a bar down the road, so later the remaining three of us found ourselves wandering the back streets of Huanchaco. A man from the deep north of England spotted us drifting aimlessly and showed us the way, speaking in tongues the whole time though apparently it was English. We got to the bar at 9 and started on Pisco sours, which contains egg whites, Pisco, and goodness knows what else. 3 hours later and the band still hadn't started, and I was not in a good way so headed back before passing out instantly on the bed.
The next day we booked a coach to Tumbes; a city on the border of Peru and Ecuador for S38 realising that this was considerably cheaper than what we'd paid to get anywhere before, and this was hammered home by the man repeating "Economico" several times as we paid.
I then took a bus to Chan Chan aka the largest temple ruins in the world, as they were only down the road. The bus dropped me off at the end of a long and winding dusty road leading off into the dunes and for a moment staring into the barren wasteland, I thought this couldn't be it... After a 30 minute stomp in the blistering heat with vultures actually circling above I actually found more people and the entrance.