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Other entries in Trujillo

Servicios Unhigienicos

You learn pretty quickly once you arrive on a trip like this what the most useful things are that you've packed, what you shouldn't have brought and what you really should have. If asked to advise any travellers in the future about what they should bring on a trip like this top of the list will be as much antibacterial hand gel and as many packets of tissues as they can cram in. Ah yes, the joys of the South American public toilet. Never was anything so un-aptly named; 'servicios higienicos' my arse indeed. Under normal circumstances you wouldn't get me near a public toilet for all the Jaffa Cakes in Tesco but when you're taking 8 hour bus journeys on a regular basis they're pretty much unavoidable. I've perfected the art of trampling small kids and elbowing little old ladies out of the way in order to be first off the bus when it stops. Not that that required much practise though, those have always been two of my favourite hobbies. When it comes to the toilets themselves I've adopted the 'don't look down' approach on the basis that what the eye doesn't see the stomach doesn't turn for. Even when I roll my trousers up to my knees I'm still paranoid that they might touch the (paddling pool-esque) floor, there's never any toilet paper hence my new hobby of nicking napkins from restaurants and in the unlikely event that there is soap it'll add more germs to your hands than it takes away. In reality though many of them don't even have water. Either to flush the toilet or to wash your hands with. Some have a sink but no tap, I can only assume they're like indicators on a BMW - there for purely decorative purposes or that taps are overpriced in this part of the world. In one particularly memorable place there was no sink and the toilet had to be flushed with a bucket of water. Fair dos you might think but let me elaborate... this place was a restaurant and they didn't leave the bucket there for you to do it yourself, oh no, it was done by one of the guys from the kitchen. And again let me repeat, there was no sink for washing your hands. Bon appetit indeed. But again, y'know, far be it from me to complain, my thigh muscles will be like steel by the time we get to Rio. And my immune system will be like Fort Knox. Well, either that or I'll be in the Centre for Incurable Diseases Caught From Dodgy Toilets.
 
We've been pretty lucky so far with our hotels though, they've all been clean and with the luxury of running water. To say 'hot and cold running water' would be pushing it but when you've been forced to pee in some of the places we have in the last few weeks you're grateful for small mercies. Our first Peruvian hotel was fairly interesting though to say the least... we crossed the border into Peru on Sunday which was an experience in itself and we went to a beach resort in northern Peru called Mancora where we did a lot of sunbathing, had surfing lessons (well some of them did, I lay around the pool some more but I hear it was great) and ate a lot of extremely good seafood. It'd really be rude not to when it's 30 degrees outside and you can get a plate of tiger prawns the size of your average hamster and a jug of freshly squeezed passion fruit juice brought right to your table at the beach for $2.50. There was also a market selling every kind of tat known to man, bars with 2 cocktails for 3 quid and ice cream stalls every 10 feet so all in all I've spent time in worse places. But back to the hotel. On first inspection it was great, it had a pool and a nice bar and breakfast area and the rooms were little cabana type houses with thatched roofs and hammocks outside. So far so Castaway sed us. Until we got into the bathroom. It had no roof. And it had a garden in it, a proper garden with soil and plants. And we all know what happens when you combine hot weather with a roofless, wet, humid space with earth and plants... it's like an entomologists wet dream. I swear that small space contains more insects than the Natural History Museum but unlike in there they're all very much alive... well, at least they were until they felt the wrath of my shoe. I barely slept a wink for 3 nights as I was paranoid about a cockroach running over me in the middle of the night and more than once I leapt out of the bed flailing about like Hong Kong Phooey because I turned around to find a locust sitting on my pillow staring at me.

On Wednesday we waved goodbye to most of the insects (the rest have stowed away in the bottom of my rucksack and no doubt will be hiding in the next pair of knickers which I pull out) and we bussed it 8 hours down the coast to Trujillo and another beach resort called Huanchaco. Huanchaco's main claim to fame is its famous (well, they are in Peru) surfing fishermen which a few of us got up at 6am on Friday morning to go and see. Those of you who know me will know that that is not a time that normally features in Nicola World but it was definitely worth it. It was fantastic to watch and one of them made us little replicas of the reed rafts they use to take away with us and insisted that we all pose for photos with him and made us promise to get them printed out and post them back to him. I like the Peruvians velly much. So much so that I can't even be sarcastic about them. Don't worry though, it's early days yet...  

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