Day 13 to 15: The discovery of Couch Surfing
We had had a great time in Chiclayo especially getting to meet Yuliana with all her local know how. Jim, his girlfriend Dennisse, and now Yuliana had all spoken of the Couch Surfing on-line community that they all belonged to which enables one to get in contact with locals in cities the world over so that one can either stay with a local (for free may I add) or just meet up with them to learn a bit about each others city, culture etc. we decided to check it out and Couch Surfing turned out to be just what we were looking for as we almost immediately found a guy named Abrahan in Trujillo, the next big city we were due to stay in, with lots of local knowledge who kindly said he would have us at at late notice. We were to be his 107th and 108th Couch Surfing guests!
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We spent one night in Pacasmayo on our way to Trujillo. Pacasmayo turned out to be a nice little industrial beach town but the approach by bike was far from inviting. Coming into the city there was nothing but desert, a strong head wind and what turned out to be a cement factory in the distance spewing out a huge cloud of pollution. This scene was so unpleasant that they even had a sign asking you to smile because you were now in Pacasmayo!
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We spent 2 nights with Abrahan in Trujillo. The first night we hit the sack early as we had had 2 long days on the bike but got up early to check out the nearby attractions Chan Chan and Huanchaco had to offer.
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Chan Chan is an ancient pre Columbian village so as with most tourist attractions we came, we saw, we read a bit, we took pictures and moved on.
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Huanchaco is a very popular surf town with a great left wave but as the weather and water were far cooler than we had become accustomed to in Montañita we just watched a few 'gringos' learn to surf then headed back to check out a little more of Trujillo.
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Frank, another Couch Surfer from France, had arrived at Abrahan's house while we were out so when we returned we all set out together to the local market to buy the ingredients for the local dish Abrahan's mom would later help us to prepare. The dish was called Papa a la Huancaína - basically boiled potatoes smothered in delicious cheese and chilly sauce!
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Frank, not having to get up at 6am to cycle out of town, took up an offer to go to Abrahan's friends house - thankfully we declined as he only crawled in a couple of hours before we were due to depart!
Day 16 & 17: More kind people and the road to Chimbote
Next we were due to cycle to Chimbote where we planned to leave our bikes so we could head inland for a few days so we could go hiking in the Cordillera Blanca mountains. Fortunately, we found a Couch Surfer in Chimbote, Juan, who was away but said his mom and brother would help us out.
Chimbote was 130km away which we had planned to do in 2 days but after cycling about 90km there was nowhere to stay or that looked inviting to camp on, behind or near so we pushed on and stayed in Santa, just 12km outside of Chimbote.
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We arrived at our host which was actually a school early the next day and what a warm welcome we received! Everyone at the school greeted us warmly, even the children politely stretched out their hands to shake ours and greeted us with the few words of English they knew 'hello teacher'!
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Juan's mom and brother showed us where to store our bikes, the showers and where to change etc. Then Juan's brother and his friend took us to get our bus tickets, showed us a bit around town then took us for the most delicious Ceviche (mixture of raw fish, squid etc in spicy lemon juice) ever before seeing us off on the midday bus to Caraz.
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Caraz was 6 hrs away on the bus along a single track dirt road winding its way up into the mountains hooting loudly as it passed through precarious narrow sand stone tunnels, hair pin bends and any form of rural dwelling. Eventually we made it to Caraz alive after having seen some of the most amazing scenery ever and having played taxi to anyone that needed to hop on or off along the way including the local ice-cream man (optimistically serving up ice-cream cones running up and down hoping they would all sell before they quickly melted in the desert heat) and the dozens of local ladies selling rather sought after lemons which inevitably landed up rolling around the bus floor.
Day 18 to 20: Hiking the Cordillera Blanca mountains
We spent the night in Caraz, which is a very old Spanish village full of charm, at a beautiful little hostel which reminded me so much of my old farm house back in South Africa - high roof, thick walls and dry cool air.
Frank met up with us at our hostel early the next morning after having spent another night partying in Trujillo and a night on the bus up from Trujillo.
We then spent the next 3 days together exploring the area but I'll let the pics tell best part of the story:
-The Llanganuco lagoons: Chinancocha and Orconcocha (A day trip, 2hrs by taxi along a steep gravel road from Yungay a village just 15min away. 2 magnificent glacial lagoons surrounded by towering snow capped peaks)
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| From World Travels - Peru |
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-Old Yungay Memorial (This old village was destroyed by an avalanche on 31 May 1970 caused by an earthquake killing an estimated 70000 in the region including everyone in the village)
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| From World Travels - Peru |
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| From World Travels - Peru |
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| From World Travels - Peru |
-Parón Lagoon (A 2 day hike. After catching a taxi over an hour up into the mountains from Caraz we hiked up the valley along a crystal clear glacial river and around the lagoon where we were due to camp the night then return along the same route the day following. Which all proved tougher than thought as the lagoon had risen up and over the friendly footpath which can now be seen 1m below the surface of the crystal clear lagoon.)
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| From World Travels - Peru |
The hike up to the Parón Lagoon was awesome and fortunately no one lost their footing while clambering around the steep lagoon mountain sides thus avoiding broken limbs and a rather unwelcome freezing swim.
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| From World Travels - Peru |
The night spent camping at the mouth of the lagoon below snow capped peaks turned out not to be as chilly as expected thanks to our rather overly toasty 'bolsa de dormir' directly translated to bag of sleep. However, the outsides of our tents and my shoes which I had left outside the tent had somewhat frozen over night.
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| From World Travels - Peru |
Mark and I both woke up in the middle of night feeling like we were trapped in a sauna after having dressed ourselves in everything we had with us and wrapping ourselves up tightly in our below zero rated bags of sleep. However, in my panic to cool down by removing all my clothes, besides my underwear, while still in my bag of sleep, I managed to role onto Frank's drinking bladder and thus woke up an hour later only to discover I was now sleeping in a very wet puddle of water! At first, only because the puddle was rather toasty warm, I grew concerned that I returned to my early childhood habit of wetting the bed when sleeping in a strange place so I was almost relieved to discover the pipe running from Frank's drinking bladder underneath me.
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| From World Travels - Peru |
Day 21: Return to Chimbote
After seeing Frank off (sans his phone which must have been taken from his bag while in storage at the hostel - strange though because nothing else including cash in the same pocket had disappeared) and having spent one more night recovering in Caraz we are now returning to Chimbote for some more delicious Ceviche and a night at the school where we had stored our stuff.
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| From World Travels - Peru |
Tomorrow we set off on the last 450km to Lima hoping to be there by this time next week where we will meet up with Ross, store our bikes and head inland again to Machu Picchu and Bolivia.
Hope you enjoyed the pics! A full collection of the pics can be seen here.
the mountains and the lakes look A.M.A.Z.I.N.G!
ReplyDeleteas does mark's beard!
all sounds spectacular.
love and hugs. hannah.