PERU - Piura y Chiclayo

Our plan was to get the hideously early bus (leaving at 7am) from Loja, Ecuador directly to Piura, Peru, and once we arrived look for a bus directly to Chiclayo as it seemed like there wasn’t a huge amount to do in Piura itself. The bus was fairly uneventful, starting off quite full and slowly whittling away until it was just three of us (us and a Swiss guy) heading over the border to Peru. Whilst the immigration side of things was not only simple but extremely quiet, the process still seemed to take a fair amount of time, whilst the bus waited for us the other side of the border.

Almost immediately we could see differences between here and where we’d just been in Ecuador. Suddenly, everything seemed more chaotic, with traffic a little more all over the place, tuktuks (mototaxi’s as they’re called here), dusty, dry roads and buildings that looked a little less polished than we had been used to. Honestly, it felt like we’d somehow magically crossed the border straight into Asia, which was a very odd sensation, and one that Diana hadn’t at all mentally prepared herself for.

Upon arriving in Piura, we set off in search of an ATM as there hadn’t been anywhere we could exchange our left over dollars at the border, and here they have their own currency, Soles (pronounced sol-ess). Around 2km walk with our bags, we found an array of banks, and headed back to where the bus companies were. Unlike Colombia and Ecuador, where it was common for a town or city to have a ‘Terminal Terrestre’ or ‘Land terminal’ where all the bus companies congregate, Peru has several individual bus companies scattered around the town. This made things a little more difficult as you couldn’t just go to one place and look for signs for where you wanted to go, or, last case scenario, shout the place name until someone’s ears pricked up and they took you where you needed to be. No, this would involve a lot more walking about until we could work out who offered services to where we wanted to be, as well as checking times, availability and prices. We weren’t used to this much legwork now!

We tried a few places, but none of them seemed to go to Chiclayo, or only had one bus a day through another place. Attempting to communicate with a mototaxi driver, it seemed there was an area with three bus companies all next to each other, all offering frequent routes to Chiclayo, so we asked to go there. Unfortunately for us, the next buses were all at least 2 more hours from when we wanted, and meant we wouldn’t arrive until gone 8pm. Diana was getting a bit frustrated, so we opted to look for accommodation in the area instead, and wandered off to a hostel we’d spotted online when looking up the place, which was exceptionally well hidden with no indication it even existed apart from the visible WiFi spot.

We did very little here except formulate a plan to get to Chiclayo the next morning. So far our impressions were a bit odd and mixed. It felt so much like Asia it was hard to believe how much things had changed, from the crazy driving, the dug up roads you just cross wherever you fancy, the tuktuks, everything. Until we headed to the nearby supermarket which then felt like we’d been transferred back to England, being that it stocked everything and was exceptionally neat and tidy. This place is getting confusing!

Our first glimpse of purple corn

The beer aisle in the supermarket of a country with only two main brands of beer

Diana made a friend almost immediately!

The next morning we headed off to the bus company with the most daily departures to Chiclayo and found one without an issue for 10 minutes time. This was our first experience with a Peruvian bus, and it wasn’t quite the same. Firstly, we had to check our bags in, like we were in an airport. We had a baggage allowance and disclaimers that our bags couldn’t contain certain things. A security guard looked us over, and before we got on the bus, our tickets and passports were checked. I started to wonder if we were actually going by road or air. Then we got on the bus. The fanciest bus we’d ever seen.

Firstly, we were on the top deck. Yep, the intercity buses here are two story. Secondly, we sat in deep, wide leather thrones rather than seats. For a country we would need to do a few overnight trips in, I was starting to feel a bit better about potentially getting some sleep! As long as I blotted out the crazy driving aspect, anyway. The bus also had a hostess, toilet facilities, and downstairs was a glassed off private ‘VIP’ area with even comfier, literally horizontally reclining seats. This all seemed a little excessive for a 5 hour drive, but we weren’t complaining!

We finally arrived in Chiclayo, a busy town where the drivers had absolute priority over pedestrians and trying to cross the road was to take your life into your own hands. We checked into the first hostel we could find and took to exploring. We checked out the main square to see the Christmas decorations that still hadn’t been taken down, where we were approached by a guy probably a little younger than us who wanted to test his English. The conversation went something like this:

Him: Hello, where are you from?

Us: England, and you?

Him: I live here. Do you like this town?

Us: Yes it seems very nice, we only just arrived.

Him: Okay, I don’t speak English, bye.

… as he proceeded to walk off just as quickly as he appeared. We got the impression that fewer tourists come here than other places, as we did seem to be a little bit of a novelty.

Ah yes, the corner of Bolognesi and Colon

Things to do here apparently included ancient rundown pyramids, a tomb of an ancient civilisations from the area, and a museum on the former and surrounding civilisations. Unfortunately none of these were in the town itself, and would require at least an hours drive in opposite directions. As stated, there’s no obvious bus system so far, so what do we do. Well, we forget all the advice we originally got about not getting into strange cars in South America, and jump into the first car we can find where the person is shouting out the name of the town we want, of course!

A chuffed Diana who was craving sandia (Watermelon to me and you)

Known as ‘combis’, these are effectively shared taxis and minibuses, with either a sign on the windscreen saying where they’re going or someone shouting on their behalf. As expected, they don’t necessarily congregate helpfully in one place, but have several depots all over the place depending on destination. We worked out a route to minimise the amount of journeys, and headed off to our first location, Lambayeque, home of a museum about the nearby tombs and all the known pre-hispanic civilisations. All very interesting and some intriguing information on their rituals and what we could expect to find once we get to the tombs the next day, although unfortunately the English translator gave up after the first couple of displays and we were left trying to guess what was going on (we weren’t even allowed our phones for translation in case we took photos).

Our next stop was Tucume, home to “pyramids” created again in the pre-hispanic era. Whilst the view was good, it appeared that the area had been ruined by excavations rather than careful archaeological digging, with that and the weather, they were more strange looking mounds than anything that resembles what we’d consider to be pyramids. This was also our first sighting of a Peruvian hairless dog, which, combined with it’s crazy blue eyes, confused us a little into exactly what type of animal we were looking at, and whether it was actually from this realm or not (since then we’ve seen plenty more with brown eyes which aren’t anywhere near as freaky, but we’ve yet to get close enough to stroke one).

Confused us until we realised it was a specific Peruvian breed (eyes are irregular though)!

Another one!

The following day we headed out to Sipan, home of a number of excavated tombs that we learned about the day before. It’s hard to know which way around was best to see this, as we knew exactly what to expect as they’d displayed exact replicas of the tombs in the museum, however it was interesting to see it exactly as it was. One of the staff didn’t think so though, as his job was supposedly the clean out some of the tombs, and he proceeded to just throw his brushes down there before jumping in himself. I’m sure it wouldn’t have pleased the archaeologists who carefully unearthed everything too much.

Just lobbed them down he did. Shocking, there's a llama skeleton to respect here!

We had lunch here too, where we were given ceviche as a starter, a dish made with raw fish. Somewhat apprehensively, especially as I’d just recovered from a bad stomach, we gave it a go and concluded it just tasted of salty fish, which was, you know, fine. We probably won’t be ordering it anywhere though, especially as Diana isn’t keen on fish even when cooked.

Fancy stuffed wedding and hunting lizards for sale

From here, our next stop was the mountainous location of Chachapoyas, a mere 10 hour bus journey away, with only overnight options. Vamos!

Happy birthday to me!