The main hotel in Trujillo is quite a splendid spanish building.
That night we ventured out for a meal on the town. Surprisingly, and contrary to our customs in South Africa, everything comes alive at night, with thousands of pedestrians making their way to the central square just to see what is happening. Normally there are shows or brass bands of some kind doing their thing. Tonight, there was nothing major on, only a display of the water (H2O) cycle you learn when at school. Kinda weird but there you go. But the church was open:
Trujillo (pronounced Tru-gee-yo) is known as the ??city of the eternal spring?
with a climate similar to Swakopmund in Namibia, only with a consistent temperate of 23 degrees. It´s on the coast, and a heavy mist hangs over the city, yet high enough so as not to make everything too damp or cold.
The lamps in the street are the original lamps used by the Spanish in the early days, and many of the buildings date from the 1500´s too.
About TrujilloTrujillo was one of the first cities founded by Spanish conquerors in America in 1534, under the name of "Villa Trujillo," in honour of Francisco Pizarro's birthplace, Trujillo in Extremadura, Spain. On 23 November 1537, King Charles I of Spain gave it the rank of 'city' and the coat of arms that remains a symbol for the city. It was founded among four ethnic Chimu settlements (Huanchaco, Huamán, Moche & Mampuesto), so the spanish could rally up support to conquer 
the dominant the Incas up in the mountains. These guys formed the main army supporting the 160 odd conquistadores defending occupied lowlands.
In 1619, an earthquake destroyed the city. Years later, in 1624, a new period surge started with the rebuildings of palaces and the opening of the seminary and the school of the Jesuits.
The city played a significant role in the struggle against a complete Spanish rule. It was the first important city of Peru that proclaimed its independence of Spain on 1820, serving as temporary capital of Peru in 1825, and was the main headquarters for Simon Bolívar.I must say, I found myself pretty tense wandering around this city on foot at night with a camera and my beautiful wife, but after a while I realised that actually no one was really out to get us. I think it??s a reflection of our crazy culture back home, you know, to always be on your guard. We arrived at this park and people were relaxing with their kids there. We made our way about 6 blocks up the road and came across another park, people relaxing on benches and stuff.
Just before the restaurant we passed the convent, which still keeps it´s patrons well protected from the public with a 5m perimeter wall, seen behind this church.
The restaurant was awesome, set in this old Spanish house built in a quadrangle with the central square roofed in.
The food was excellent and relatively cheap.
The next day D sets up her bike for the next stage of our journey north. We had managed to sneak our bikes into the back entrance of the hotel to rest for the night with a whole bunch of flat screens that were due to be installed in the rooms.
Before we left we when to see where these Chimu people lived. Towards the airport we came across this huge undeveloped area of desert in the city filled with ruined palaces.
Active archealogical excavations continue to this day. This team of guys admired our bikes as we arrived before they pushed off. There are 18 walled cities in this area measuring on average 1km x 1km, only one of which has been excavated so far, and this one is not yet complete.
Here is the main entrance, the whole city being surrounded by 8-12m high walls:
They have murals of seals as well as pelicans, and fish in their walls all over the place. This wall was part of the main auditorium, which although was over one hactare in area, had awesome acoustics.
This area reminded me of the ZIM ruins (no pun intended).
Everything is made from mud bricks, which is not a problem in the desert, apart from the odd shower every 80-100yrs.
They dug these large wells to obtain fresh water, obviously there is some kind of subterranean flow around 6m below the surface of the desert.
Having satisfied D´s curiosity I was itching to get on the road again, and belted off up north along the Carretera Pan American. Five minutes later we came across two trucks involved in a head-on collision. Definitely fatalities there.
Got to watch these Peruvian drivers ALL the time when riding in this country.
Back out into the desert for mile after mile. Fun to open up and fly.
(To the sound of dramatic background music and David Attenborough´s voice:)
But when the rivers from the mountains cross the desert to the Pacific ocean, even here there is life - Rice paddies.
In one of the driest parts of the planet, we have perhaps the most water intensive farming imaginable. There is one thing Peru has plenty of, and that is water. Only 1.5% percent of the rainfall that falls in Peru runs from the Andes into the Pacific ocean and generates all of Peru´s power and supplying all it´s water needs. The rest flows into the Amazon river and ultimately reaches the Atlantic Ocean on the other side of the continent.
Our bikes resting (on their feet).
Onward, and as the afternoon wore on, the cross wind picked up. Challenging taking photos one-handed in this lot at 160!
Driving through Chiclayo was awful. I wasn??t able to take photos thanks to the numerous three-wheeled little moto-taxis trying to cut us off at every opportunity. Avoiding them, the smoke-belching trucks, busses with offset axles, drunk pedestrians and about 50 million dogs made riding, never mind photography particularly hazardous. It would have been bearable if the people there were not rude and obnoxious. Awful.
So we stopped for a late lunch at a place about 30km further on called Lambayeque.
Our lunches were pretty simple: Tuna and tomato sandwiches with water. A lot less risque than the local dodgey resturants, and therefore less opportunity for trots in the desert - Never a nice contemplation.
In Lambayeque, they had this cool looking MP barracks, the boys up here wear the desert uniforms reminding me of Algerian legionaires of all things.
Our aim was to get to Piura, about 260km further to the north. This would leave us with just a few hundred km for the following day to the border. The temperature climbed as we went north, and the desert gradually turned to bushveld.
On the way to
Hammanskraal Piura.
My eyelids are drooping now so I´ll continue tomorrow. Ride safe out there!
Topic: Lima to Ecuador & back in 9 Days - Updated, NO REALLY! (Read 6049 times)
