Adventures in Peru

i spent some time in trujillo. that was good?
i did lots of shopping. they make it so easy, so enticing. closing off streets as it starts to get dark. people filling the streets, eating icecream, sandwiches, popcorn, cotton candy, and shopping. if they don’t have what you want, you are probably on the wrong street.
i also went to a bunch of ruins. chan chan was huge. the full area of ruins was acres and acres. the ’site’ is a partial restoration of the best preserved large ‘temple.’ the other big place i went to was called ‘hauca de la luna’. my guide explained that these people didn’t actualy worship the sun or the moon, they weren’t crazy! then i got to see illistrations depicting human sacriface, worshiping the nearest mountain and feeding bodies to voltures. the site was terrible for taking photos. everything was covered. support posts ran everywhich way. but, the site has not been restored in any way. it is all in the name of preservation.

now that i have shopped, i have 2 bags to carry around on transport days. i also have more than 20kgs. 20 is the magic number that is free. i haven’t ran into a problem on either bus, but the flights i have could be a bigger problem. the flight i would need to take to get into iquitos says no-baggage. we will see about that. i will talk with a travel agent.

the bus ride to trujillo was a trill. i took the cheapest local bus. twisty unpaved canyon roads. long curvy one lane tunels. a broken windscreen. the bus started out fine. throw your bag to the guy dancing on the roof; he might catch it, he might drop it. all that gets tied down and the bus loads with people. noone take the seat that matches the number on their tickets. shortly after the sweaty bus takes off people start to throw buckets of water at it…CARNIVAL. all the windows get closed.
we passes a control check point. the driver was not wearing his seat belt… that is again the law here. people in the front seat of a vehicle always need seatbelts on the highway. everyone else can do as they please. the ticketing proccess took awhile longer than it would in canada. it went at a relaxed pace.
then, this is the exciting part, kids run infront of the bus at full speed on the highway and throw water balloons directly at the oncoming bus. they bus driver slamms on the breaks, swerves around the road without crashing. both from windscreens are cracked in this proccess. the right one had a nice crack from the bottom left to about a quarter of the way up the right side. the driverside window developed an entire web of cracks. about one third of the window was covered with cracks.
this all slowed the journey considerably. we needed to get the policia, drive back to the scene, find the kids, find the parents, get statement, id, drive the police back and continue the journey at a slower pace! all this and we hadn’t even entered the canyon yet. this was on the paved part of road.