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Kim looking short

We spent the afternoon in Loja before heading back to Peru. There’s not too much to do in the city, but it’s a nice little city. We went to the zoo there which is fairly new. Not to say it’s up to any kind of standards of American zoos, but it’s better than we expected. We got to see a spectacled bear, which is endangered in the region and very rare to see in the wild. A guide on a hike said he’d only seen two in 30 years. The monkeys are always fun to watch too.

From Loja we had an overnight bus that went straight across the border to Peru, stopping for immigration, and on to Piura. Much simpler than the other border crossing even if less exciting. We spent a few hours in Piura and that was more than enough. From there we were on to Chiclayo. I was extremely frustrated by the food options in Chiclayo.

Peru’s Airforce in Chiclayo

I hope to never see another polleria (basically fried chicken) restaurant again. We finally found a vegetarian restaurant by jumping in a cab and asking since the directions some people gave us were utterly useless and there were none listed in the guide book. We went to three movies to pass the time in evening: Beowulf (thumbs up), Next (thumbs down), and Mr Brooks (neutral – good in a way, but super weird).

The highlight of Chiclayo was definitely the museum, Señor de Sipan, which is actually in Lambeyeque. This is the best museum we’ve seen so far. We must have spent over 4 hours there. By the time we got out we didn’t have to see anything else as our bus left at 7PM. We got a semi-cama with one of the nicer bus companies, Movil Tours, which means the seat goes almost horizontal and they don’t blast action movies all night long.

Crazy Road Back to Chiclayo

This makes night buses soooo much better. We also got the very front seat too, which is cool because you have a view right out the windshield to see the scenery and there’s nobody in front or behind you.

We got stuck for a few hours again in Chachapoyas, which I don’t think I’ll ever enjoy too much, but now we’re in Leymebamba for the month of December to teach English. It’ll be nice to be somewhere small and friendly for Christmas if we aren’t going to be at home.