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Huaca, Huaca, Huaca!

Bye bye, Ecuador, you've been good to us and I daresay we've not been bad to you. The three am border crossing is a short formality of form-filling and the acquisition of two new stamps (one out, one in). Piura in North Peru has very little going for it, and consequently, very many going from it, to cities and beaches further south. We too took the first thing on wheels out of there, as far as Chiclayo, where we waved goodbye to the French bird (not Carole, obviously) and then yet another bus - it was getting a bit like one of those convoluted bank-robbery getaway/car-chases at this stage - to Trujillo, and one final bus for the twelve remaining kilometres to Huanchaco (or Huanchaco, Huanchaco, Huanchacoooooooooo as its known amongst bus condictors). It was a bit like driving six times around Ireland to get to the beach, and the water is fecking freezing. Due to something called the Humboldt current, the water immediately south of the Ecuadorean border is gelid, whereas just north it's deliciously warm. Bad luck Peru, but at least there's the consolation of some fantastic surf, if you could be bothered to pull on a skintight rubber suit so as to fall over repeatedly and smack your head on a plank (I think there are also clubs like that in Amsterdam, if you're round that way and haven't got your board). It's not that I'm jealous of people who can skim over head-high waves like the flattest of stones and pull chicks called Reese and Tonya, it's just not my bag.

We checked into a small hostel with a tiny pool and a minimal atmosphere, for a decent price.  It served as a base for wandering around some ruins, but has little to recommend it. Cherry's, it's called, if you're remotely interested. Between the big city of Trujillo and the small village of Huanchaco (Huanchaco Huanchacooooooooo) lies the six hundred year old ruins of the city of Chan Chan, home to the Chimu, successors of the Moche and precursors to the Inca empire, themselves rulers for a mere century before the Spanish came a-wrecking. In the context of the repeated upheavals of the middle of the last millenium, it's unsurprising that the city is in absolute bits. From the entrance to the compund of Tschudi, ten-foot high crumbled walls of sand and mud sprawl out for kilometres in all directions, so that once you're a small ways up the path and the road is out of sight, you start to get the unshakable feeling that you're on some other planet, Tatooine or the like, and the prospect of being buzzed by a tie-fighter begins to seem plausible. A place more different from the green mountains of Southern Ecuador is hard to imagine, though awe-inspiring in its own way. The palace of Tschudi, called after the Swiss chap who discovered it ("Ow! I seem to have stubbed my toe on... a pre-Columbian city of 60,000 people.") rather than the king who ruled from it, is part of a set of four archaeological sites visitable on one ticket, on sale for a very reasonable eleven soles, or just under three euros for the lot, and well worth a look round. The alien feel of the place is further enhanced by the sudden appearance of a large, black leather creature with fangs of finest Toledo steel, a sort of giant bat-spider of pure muscle, a lap-dragon of purest jade, coal black eyes blazing in the oppressive sun. It's actually a dog, a really friendly, blad, Peruvian dog, a race renowned for its arthritis-relieving abilities, due to its elevated body temperature and instinctively cuddly nature. So that's alright then, we're not about to be devoured by some ebony goth-demon or Cerberus himself. We're more likely to be devoured by guides wanting to fleece us for twenty soles each for a guided tour of the palace (ah, you're grand boss, I can read the signs myself thanks). The central palace, in contrast to the outlying buildings which served as dwelling-places for the plebs, is fairly well conserved, and one can still make out the carved designs of pelicans, fish and nets all around the inner walls, and the two statues standing stalwart on either side of the main ramp, where once some no-doubt gruesome rite was performed to the gathered masses of the upper classes.

The next day, we visited the remaining three sites in a couple of hours. The first was a museum, which was closed for renovation, save for the one audio room where we stood bewildered in the dark as a voice in electrified Spanish told us some or other amazing facts about the history and downfall of Chan Chan. Moving swiftly on... to the Huaca Esmeralda. There are no signposts to this place, and asking locals can yield any imaginable results. "It's ten blocks up and on the left" (in true Peruvian style, we bargained him down to 6). "It's back where you came from, on the right, near the church". "The Huaca what?". "It's closed down." etc. We found it using the Pythagoran pinball theory, whereby you ask three people the way, work out the average distance and direction using complex geometry, then walk a few blocks in that direction before asking someone else, on the assumption that the nearer you get to your goal, the more likely the person you ask will have heard of the place. We walked past the place, having been told "you can't miss it", and were almost encroaching on the bad side of the Trujillo tracks when an elderly man came wheezing up to us to warn us against visiting that particular area of town ("ooh, you don't wanna go douwn thit rooad"), and shoved us back in the true direction of the Huaca Esmerelda. Which was a scaled down version of Tschudi, with a nice view of the mountains in the background. Onwards then, by foot and cbock-a-block camioneta to the last of the Huacas, the Huaca Arco Iris, or rainbow huaca, also known as the dragon huaca, just in case you wanted confusing. I can't honestly remember what this place was like (more of the same, really), but not only did it have a couple more baldy dogs, but also a baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaabyyyy, a pupppppyyyy, awwwwww!!! Seriously, isn't he the funniest, ugliest, cutest lickle hound dawg you ever did see?

So that, in a nutshell was North Peru. Lots and lots of sand, some broken buildings and slaphead pooches. Next up, another mammoth, two-step bus ride via Lima to Huacachina, a mesmerising oasis amidst the dunes.

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