Week 39 - Peru

Cruising the mountains at Huascaran

Digging out Adobe structures is harder than it looks..

The princess of Chan Chan

Smell the coastal air

Mancora beach's sunset

Como Estas Amigos! And Welcome to Election day in Peru!!!

I mentioned last time that presidential elections were underway and we were on our way out of Peru to see sanctuary in Ecuador from any crazy riots which many follow some vote rigging controversy. What I have learned since is a few funny things about the candidates. So Peru doesn´t seem to have a clue about who to vote for. Firstly there are 5 main candidates, each with a double digit percentage of the votes expected according to the polls. On top of that, when we asked Peruvians who they would vote for, the conversation would go like this, I was going to vote for Piñera, but I am now not sure between Keiko and Kuczynski.
Let me explain about the two latter candidates. Keiko Fujimori is the daughter of an ex-Peruvian president who is was an outright dictator and is being pursued for human rights charges. Oh, you may think Fujimori doesn`t sound too Peruvian, well they are Japanese (mixed). Pedro Pablo Kuczynski is actually half American (the USA type) and he spends most of his time there. So who is going to win, I put my money on Ollanta Humala, who is from the military. My rationale is he has the most public advertisements throughout Peru..
Whatever the case, we have gotten out of dodge. Let me tell you a great supporting reason for leaving which we didn´t know about - THEY HAVE BANNED ALCOHOL!!! Yes, 48 hours before and after the election alcohol is banned.. Good riddens Peru!! We are now relaxing in gorgeous Ecuador!

Let me give you one nugget about Peru before we move on to our trip, Peru must be one of the top 10 most internet connected countries for hotels and restaurants! Everywhere, I have been able to get a FREE wifi connection - wish I could say that about London.

So let me tell you about our path so far: Huarez > Trujillo > Mancora

Monday - Huascaran National Park: For our last week in Peru we headed to Huascaran for a few days of trekking. Once there, we learned that there would only be a one day trail suitable for us, unless we wanted to get all the camping gear, which we were not too up for after being pampered along the Inca trail. Carry my own cooking equipment... I think not :D So we had a nice day hiking through the countryside and up to a waterfall seeing many snow covered peaks around us. We definitely could feel Mama Altitude playing up. We had gone from Lima (200 meters) to our trail taking us up to 4,500 meters (that’s 14,000 feet to my compatriots). Certainly more than one should do and luckily the rain clouds were coming so we didn´t have to test our pride and retreat back.

Tuesday - Chan Chan: We didn´t plan to go to Trujillo, but it was a connection on the way to Mancora and we would need to spend the day in Trujillo. Reading up on it, I was surprised I hadn´t planned a trip there. Trujillo is home to the largest Adobe civilization on the planet. The Moche, yet another indigenous tribe in Peru settled around Trujillo in around 600AD and build these cities of Adobe. The most famous being Chan Chan, La Huaca Arco Iris, and Huaca del Sol. To say they are big, would be a serious insult, they are impressively massive. And let me remind you they are still around today, still impressive and humongous! Yet another amazing site in a country full of far too many to see or even name! I didn't mention the most exciting part, these sites in Trujillo were only discovered a few decades ago and they are still digging them out - see the picture above.

Wednesday to Friday - Mancora: Finally after full nights sleeping on the bus, we have arrived in Mancora. You may think sleeping on the bus for nearly half a week is tough, not after 9 months travelling, but we were thankful to have our nice comfy bed in Mancora! 4 days would have been very annoying... Mancora is a beach town with excellent waves and is a big surfer hangout. For the three days we did absolutely nothing. The last few weeks had been on the go and we really needed some R&R with a bit of sun. The sunset here was very impressive - see above. We had a great hostel with a pool and bar which seemed to tend to our needs when we weren´t in the ocean.

Saturday - Crossing the Boarder: As if we didn´t have enough buses, it took us three to get to our destination in Ecuador. Besides being 3 or 4KM away from each other, crossing the boarder from Peru to Ecuador is a breeze! I´ll tell you more about this small country which is packed full with adventure!
So what is next in store, well Ecuador if you haven´t been reading :D For places, we are now in Cuenca, heading to Banos (yes that means toilet in Spanish), and then up to the Quilotoa Loop. In Banos we may be travelling into the Amazon if all goes well.

Hasta Luego,

Dan and Marina