On
arriving in Huanchaco yesterday afternoon we checked into the excellent Hostal
Naylamp
which feels like a real treat. The rooms
are spacious, spotless and with 2 windows wonderfully bright and airy. We splashed out on a slightly more expensive
upper room (Soles60) so we have an ocean view and a balcony plus the usual
cable TV and free wi-fi. The hostal also
has lots of comfy seating areas, bar, restaurant, laundry facilities and small
kitchen which we plan to use. Before we
had time to get supplies organised we splashed out and actually paid for our
breakfast. It was good value but the
main reason I’m telling you this is so that I can sneak in the fact that this
is another place with a tortoise roaming around. While we were having our tea and toast it
wandered over and decided to plonk itself under our table – it’s not every day
you play footsie with a reptile.
We
haven’t done much in a touristy sense since getting here as we’ve hit that time
where we need to catch up on chores.
Enjoying yourself is all very well but knickers need to be washed! Plus if I didn’t keep up to date with this
journal you wouldn’t know where we were or what we’d been up to. So what have we done?
Wandered
the length and breadth of town in a matter of minutes. It’s lovely and peaceful here as a few
hundred meters along from our guesthouse it is literally the end of the
road. The beach is no great shakes as
it’s where the desert meets the ocean so the sand has a decidedly industrial
look and feel to it. Each morning we’ve
been here we’ve looked out at grey seas and skies; this sea fret moves away by
the afternoon leaving blue skies but you’ve already been put off the idea of
taking a dip. It may be warm once the
sun is out but it’s only just spring here so the water is very cold. However, it’s lovely listening to the waves
crashing in but the place attracts trainee surfers. Luckily it’s off-season so there aren’t too
many surfer dudes around but there’s a smattering trying out the waves and a
gaggle of twizzlers for us to gawp and chuckle at.
Obviously
we’ve not done nothing for the last 3 days and in fact the main reason why we
decided to stop along this part of the coast was to take in some more of those
lost cities. Chan Chan was the place we
were aware of before getting here but we passed it on the bus yesterday and
instantly decided it wasn’t worth going back to. Luckily there are loads of recently
rediscovered settlements to take a gander at so we hopped on and off various
local jalopies and made our way to Huacas del Sol y de la Luna. These sun and moon temples and the
residential area in between have been lost to the desert for many a long
year. It’s very easy to see how the
buildings could be engulfed through sand storms, landslides and
earthquakes. To some extent this has
saved much of what was built over 2000 years ago and the archaeologists have
managed to get to the site before too many grave robbers have pillaged it.
Near
the temples is a modern, well laid out and extremely informative museum with
descriptions in Spanish and English. To
enter you pay an extra Soles3 with the temple complex costing Soles10. We were all ready to pay but there was no one
in the ticket office and with someone lurking by the museum entrance we thought
you had to pay there instead. There was
all manner of confusion in the doorway as a large school party were just
leaving and bizarrely a whole whack of beauty pageant contestants. In the melee we simply walked in, read and
looked at everything, learnt loads about the Moche peoples and left with our
Soles in our pocket. Believe me we’d
have happily paid as it was one of the best museums we’ve been to in years and
they deserve the funds so they can excavate more of the area.
Speaking
of which; the main temple very much resembles a building site so we were glad
we hadn’t paid for the entrance and chose to give it a miss. This may not have been the right choice but
we knew there were 3 double decker busloads of school kids over there. Besides which the smaller temple isn’t
cordoned off and we knew we had to walk right past it to get some manner of
transport back to town so we had a quick look on the way past. All-in-all a very cheap day out!
There
are minivans zipping around all the time so we were soon back in the main town
of Trujillo. This is a sizable
conurbation and we were glad we’d opted to stay at the beach instead. The centre of town is very pleasant with its
large, open square and brightly painted colonial buildings by the dozen. We were peckish so headed for the market to
see what local tasty treats we could find.
Most places were offering menu of the day which is always excellent
value but way more than we wanted to eat in the middle of the day. Besides which we had provisions for cooking
our own tea that night. We finally got
round to trying our first tamale which was okay but a bit bland and not
particularly exciting so we went in search of something else. Just outside the market there were a couple
of locals’ restaurants whose speciality was turkey butties – that’ll do
nicely. Mighty tasty they were too.
Once
we’d tracked down a Mobil Tours bus ticket agent and purchased tickets for our
onwards journey to Chachapoyas tomorrow it was time to return to
Huanchaco. In among our catching up with
chores and chilling we’ve changed our travel plans quite considerably. We had intended to go straight up the coast
and cross over into Ecuador via Tumbes but we’ve now decided to cut back inland
and use the Zumba border crossing. The
coast was nice up to Paracas but it’s become increasingly dull as we’ve
travelled north and with The Andes having been stunning at every turn it made
sense to get back into them there mountains.
Right then – I’d best get the bags packed.
Travel Tip: Naylamp is a great place to stay in Huanchaco.
http://www.hostalnaylamp.com/enter.html
