2008 Peru – Trujillo
16th February 2008
We caught the 3 pm coach for the nine-hour journey to Trujillo in the north of Peru. I had been looking forward to the journey as the Brazilian coaches were so good but this was a whole different kettle of ball games. We took our seats on the top deck and I was alarmed at how hot it was. The idea of a coach with no air conditioning was inconceivable so I assumed it was because we were stationary and as soon as we started moving it would cool down. It didn´t. We were all gasping for breath and pleading with the steward to do something but his response was to run up and down the stairs like a headless chicken with a wasp up his arse. We found out later that most Peruvian coaches had little or no air conditioning unless you used the Camas which were coaches with seats that reclined into a bed but these were only for very long journeys. When the sun went down it became cooler and the temperature was acceptable by the time it was dark.
There were several small televisions scattered along the coach like they used to have on aeroplanes but these didn´t have earphone sockets so we were all forced to listen to a TV whether we wanted to or not. The first film was OK as the sound was turned down so you could just about hear it if you wanted to. The second film was about the dance group Stomp who stomped around the place with heavy boots making a lot of noise. I had seen them on TV at home and thought they were brilliant but stomping away through a two-hour film was torture. In the beginning, the sound was low so it wasn´t too much of a problem but later the volume was turned up full and we were sitting right under the speaker. Along with a few fellow passengers I asked the headless chicken to turn it down, which he did, but a few minutes later it was back on at full blast. There was a couple at the back that wanted to hear the film so we just had to put up with it. The noise was unbelievable at times and even with both fingers stuck deep inside my ears it was still unbearable. We had to endure two more films before they finally turned the television off and let us sleep.
After a few hours it became apparent that unlike the Brazilian coaches, there were not going to be any stops which concerned me as I was starving. Suddenly we stopped by the side of a wooden shack and without being given any information the headless chicken got off the bus. We were instructed by the driver to stay in our seats but after the smokers threatened to riot, we left the bus and stood outside for ten minutes until the headless chicken returned. No one knew why we had stopped and it wasn’t to change drivers as there was only one driver for the nine-hour drive. Then out of nowhere, the headless chicken appeared with hot chicken and rice for everyone which he must have picked up during the stop. I was torn between irritation at not being kept informed and bliss at being fed.
I always found long road journeys very tedious and this was no exception, although I did enjoy passing through the busy town centres. Shops were packed full of everything you could think of. Each town had several shops with a huge pile of bananas stacked from floor to ceiling. There couldn’t possibly have been enough inhabitants to eat so many bananas so I assumed they were also used for animal feed. What amused me was the number of shops selling coffins, not discretely at the back but in the front windows and even stacked on the pavements outside. I could just imagine the conversation in your average Peruvian household where a mother tells her son:
“Pop round the shop and get me a kilo of bananas and a packet of biscuits. Oh, and get a coffin for Grandad. I think he’s going to need one soon.”
After what felt like an eternity we arrived at our hotel in the centre of Trujillo at 2 am. Next morning we booked a couple of tours and then went for a general stroll around town. In the main square, Federika was hijacked by a young man trying to sell us a tour, while at the same time, an eight-year-old shoeshine boy was desperate to polish my shoes. I pointed out that brown suede sandals were not really meant to be shined but he presented some very uncompelling arguments as to why a good polishing was just what they needed. I looked up to see if Federika had finished talking and when I looked down I saw the boy had put some kind of dye on my sandal. This left me with the choice of getting the boy to dye my shoes completely or living with a dark patch on the side of one shoe. Considering he only wanted to charge me 50p and said he was working to pay towards his schooling I could hardly say no. He did the job with great care and I ended up with a pair of sandals a slightly darker colour than before. I gave him £1 although I would have happily given him £2 just to have left them alone.
There was not much to see in Trujillo town. The Plaza de las Almas was an old colonial house which was pleasant enough but didn’t take long to get around. Next day we went to visit the Huaca de la Luna. The great thing about all the historical sites in that region was that were finding new things all the time. For centuries people looked out at large expanses of sand until a strong wind blew some of it away to reveal priceless ruins buried beneath. They started digging and found ruins beneath the ruins so the archaeological work will probably go on forever. There was a large chamber with a strange-looking wall with vertical grooves. When someone wanted to make a speech they stood with their back to the audience and talked into one of these grooves which acted like a microphone. It was great for projecting the voice and avoiding low-flying fruit from angry protestors but not so good for gauging audience reaction. 
2008 South America
