2008 Peru – Chiclayo
Monday 18th February
We left Huanchaco for the three-hour trip to Chiclayo by coach. Again the air conditioning was terrible but this time we sat downstairs where the seating area was smaller and with less area to keep cool it was bearable. We were lucky we left when we did because the next day there was a big demonstration with agricultural workers blocking all the roads into the cities so we would have been stranded. The demonstrations got very nasty in some places and some coaches were stuck on main roads for days without moving. Some protestors threw stones at the coaches and it got so bad that the government declared a state of emergency. Because of all this and the fact that neither of us could face another 12-hour coach journey, we decided to take a flight when the time came to return to Lima.
The other reason for deciding to fly was I hadn’t realised how dangerous the coaches were and how many fatal crashes there had been. One obvious cause was that there was only ever one driver who was expected to drive non-stop for however long the journey was. Worse still, was that they weren’t even real coaches but coach lorries. They were buying old lorries from overseas and sticking coach bodies on top so the vehicle had none of the safety features expected on a coach. The death toll was so bad that the government told the coach companies to phase the coach lorries out. The coach company’s response was to go on strike which brought the country to its knees. The government backed down and agreed to let them continue using them for another 15 years on the condition that they killed as few of their passengers as possible.
One night we only managed to finish half our dinner which was normal as portions were always so big. In nearly all restaurants in Peru there was a strange custom of serving both French fries and rice. Federika and I were chatting when a young boy started looking through the window and pointing to our leftover French fries so we waved for him to come in. The waiter wasn’t too pleased but Federika explained that the boy was with us so there was not much he could do about it. The boy sat at our table and started to devour our leftovers and as a measure of how huge the portions were, he wasn’t able to finish them. He asked if he could have one of our nylon shopping bags so he could take the remaining leftovers to his brother. We transferred the contents of one bag into another and gave him the empty one. He tipped all the leftovers into the bag and topped it up with a generous helping of mayonnaise and ketchup.
We were surprised at how busy and well-developed Chiclayo was which we were told was down to it being so well-positioned for trade. The noise in the street was horrendous with drivers continuously sounding their horns. When traffic flowed smoothly it was bad enough with everyone making short honks but when a taxi stopped to pick up a passenger it held up the traffic so all the drivers kept their hands on the horn until the taxi moved off. At first, it was funny but it soon became very irritating. Another annoyance was that most decent cars had alarms which were continually going off for no reason. The alarm sounded for one minute, and then there was a break of five minutes before it started again. The cycle continued until the owner came along and turned it off, which sometimes took hours. One day it went on all night and was still sounding the next morning.
Our next tour was to the Huaca at Sipàn. Until 1981 the only thing Sipàn had to offer was sand dunes. Then one day a local family accidentally came across an ancient burial site. They looted it and by the time the authorities found out what was going on, 80% of its contents had disappeared and was never found. It wasn’t long before they discovered another huaca and other important burial sites in the area.
A lot of those early civilisations were not familiar with the saying “You can’t take it with you.” When the big knobs died, they insisted on not only being buried with all their treasure but also their wives, concubines, servants and even llamas. The fact that they were still alive at the time didn’t seem to matter and the only concession to their well-being was to drug them before burying them alive. What was fascinating was that inside the burial sites, everything was so neatly laid out. They had removed all the treasure and artefacts and put them safely in a museum, leaving the skeletons exposed for public viewing. 
After lunch we went to the museum where all the treasure had been taken and were surprised by the contents and the professional way it was put together. The museum tour was over an hour long and included a very enthusiastic guide. It was a good tour but what with all the walking and the heat of the Huaca I was shattered. I was horrified when we arrived at a second museum to be greeted by a second guide who was even more enthusiastic than the first one and spoke a strange mixture of English and Spanish. Fortunately, my camera packed up halfway through the tour so I had the perfect excuse to sit down and pretend to fix it even though I knew it was one of those weird electronic bugs that would soon fix itself.
The next day we were both in need of a rest so we went to Pimental which was the nearest beach to Chiclayo. It was nowhere as nice as Huanchaco but we had a pleasant enough time laying on the sand. Instead of fighting with the waves like in Huancaco, we had to fight with the most extraordinary current. A wave would come in and as it went back, a current pulled us so strongly to the side that it was almost impossible to walk. Once we had learnt to surrender to it and literally go with the flow it became great fun and was a bit like riding a rapid.
The beach was filthy and we saw one family leave plastic plates half full of food on the sand when they went home. We took a taxi to another beach at Santa Rosa recommended in Lonely Planet but that looked even filthier and was mainly a fishing port so we abandoned the idea and asked the taxi driver to drop us off at a small town recommended for its crafts. As far as I could see, it had all the same stuff as the other two million stalls in Peru but Federika managed to find a hat she liked.
I thought Lima had a lot of taxis but it was nothing compared to Chiclayo. They were so cheap that we used them all the time but Federika thought it would be fun to experience a colectivo. The experience started with me nearly knocking myself out on the roof of the bus as I entered through the side door. The bus was packed solid which didn’t stop them from picking up more people along the way. We knew it was going to Chiclayo but had no idea where in Chiclayo. The streets started to look more hostile so Federika asked if the bus was going to the centre but they informed us it wasn’t and advised us to get off and get a taxi straight away as we would be sitting targets for the cutthroats in that part of town. We got off near the main market where all the side streets were dirt roads. In the better areas, police had the usual guns, stab vests and other small arms but in this area, there were men in army uniforms walking in threes, carrying automatic rifles and various other impressive weaponry. We found a taxi straight away and I was relieved to hear Federika say “Never again.”
2008 South America
