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After that horrible bus ride from Terapoto to Mancora, we chilled a few days in Mancora. It was HOT. Mancora is described in the guidebook as Peru’s worst kept secret, and it shows as such as the first few hostals we went to were full. There didn’t seem to be that many people, but it was busy. The surrounding countryside isn’t very pretty, just your average Peruvian coastal desert. The beach is nice, but nothing compared to stuff in the Carribean or Hawaii. We tried surfing and the waves were much bigger than we were ready for. I got just pounded by waves after gasping in surprise at how fast they were. We also got sunburned. We put on SPF 30 sun block, but 3 hours in the sun and water were too much without reapplication. On the second day we also went to the hotsprings, which are barely developed for tourism. It’s really just a muddy hole with warm water and some bamboo huts for changing rooms.

From Mancora we returned by overnight bus to Huanchaco. It was strangely comforting to go back to somewhere we knew so well. I can only imagine how nice it will be when we go back to the US! We said hello to everyone we knew, ate at Otra Cosa, and surfed in waves we could manage, even if we felt like we had lost a lot of our ability. It was good to see David again and do a little work on the Espaanglisch web site. We also picked up our camping gear which we left behind, so no we can finally start doing some longer hikes. From there we took the luxury bus to Lima, and man oh man was it nice. I’m not sure I can go back to taking regular buses. The luxury bus was like first class airplane seats, and most importantly, the fellow passengers are quiet!

Anyway, now we’re in Lima and gonna drop off some stuff including the laptop so we can travel lighter and faster. We’ll be heading toward Arequipa and then in to Bolivia and Chile. It’s strange, but even with close to 3 months left (April 15th) it feels like our deadline to return to the US is looming. I’m pretty sure by the time that date comes though we’ll be ready to go back.

I’m on a 19 hours long bus trip from hell from Tarapoto to Piura at the moment so I thought I’d rant! We took Sol Peruano since they were the only one with a final destination of Piura, but I think it would have been much more comfortable and faster to take Movil Tours to Chiclayo and then transfer toward Mancora from there. This bus was supposed to be a semicama, meaning almost like having a bed, but in reality is about as comfortable as your average airplane seat, even with a little less room. To top it off, it’s filled with Peruvians, who as a possibly unfair generalization, are fairly oblivious to being considerate of things like noise, garbage, and personal space. I never would have taken this bus if I had know that it would be uncomfortable, crowded, stop frequently, and have no overhead lights or curtains. At least it’s got a bathroom, one you’re only supposed to pee in, but a bathroom nonetheless. I’m sure you could get away with pooping in it though since it’s just a hole that opens directly onto the road. Fortunately I’m mostly recovered from my flu that I’m just getting over, so the bathroom isn’t as essential as it would have been a day or so ago.

Don’t think we didn’t ask a few questions before buying tickets. The problem is, people here can’t communicate about details to any useful degree. Honestly, at first I just chalked it all up to a language barrier thing, but now we’re sure we understand most people and they’re just awful at communicating. If you ask them yes or no questions, like “is it a semi-bed type bus?” they’ll almost invariably say yes whether it’s true or not. It seems like people just answer yes because they think it will make you happy to hear what you want. We have to remember to refrain from asking yes/no questions in the future. Also if you ask for descriptions of time or distance you will ALWAYS get a drastic underestimate usually with fairly vaguely infurating words. For example, ahorita is the diminuitive form of ahora which means “now”. However if someone says something will happen ahorita, it could mean anywhere from 5 minutes to tomorrow. It’s a fairly meaningless word. As is “cercita”, which means close. To say that the waterfall you’re walking to is cercita could mean it’s another 5-10 miles away. People often just guess information they don’t know, but they answer as if they did.

As I’m writing this someone is loudly puking. He could just be hocking a loogie as this is done frequently and very loudly by most everyone all the time. Earlier a little girl (adults do this sort of thing too and more often) got up and walked over to the stairs and spit ON the stairs. I never really thought that considering spitting on the floor gross could be considered differently depending on the culture. I’m hoping this puking sound is in the bathroom, but it’s hard to tell with the baby and mother behind me making never ending noise. Did I mention there’s no light so people on this double decker bus can’t see to walk down the stairs or while in the bathroom?

Of course the lights do go on every time we stop, which is close to every hour. With every stop about 5 or 6 people get on the bus to sell whatever crap they have, usually gelatin, which they try to sell by loudly announcing repeatedly what they have. This makes sleeping fairly impossible for more than a few minutes at a time.

Did I mention that there’s a small child and a gigantically fat woman with the cell phone sitting behind me? You really can’t avoid traveling with children unless you rent your own car, and that’s really not a good options considering the roads are full of crazy drivers and in terrible shape. This bus recently had to drive through a shallow stream because the bridge that goes over it is not wide enough for the bus. Many sections of the road are washed out and incredibly bumpy. They are doing a lot of construction to improve the roads, but construction here goes oh so slowly because so much work is done by groups of men with shovels. Imagine trying to create mountain passes through the Andes with hand tools and it’s fairly obvious why it takes so long. The roads are frequently shared by all types of transport moving at all speeds: motorcycles, double decker buses, cars, semi-trucks, farm trucks, horses, donkeys and people walking.

The adults on trips can often be much worse than the children though. It’s like a bad Saturday Night Live skit where people can’t control the volume of their voice. There’s also people with this lovely new cellphone technology and I think everyone here is still in the mindset that you have to talk much louder on the phone than you ever do in person. There’s definitely people like this in the US too, but I swear there’s more here and the biggest thing is nobody local ever asks them to shutup. In the US if you’re one of those people sooner or later somebody will ask you to shut the hell up and everyone will applaud or something. Here nobody says anything, even if they’re annoyed , and we’ve met a few people who are annoyed, and say all their fellow countrymen have bad manners. If we ask these people to be quiet they ignore us or laugh since we’re foreigners. People just don’t seem to demand in any way that those around them behave well. People just seem to put up with everything, and I’m often unsure if they’re oblivious or just unwilling to confront anyone.

Another habit people have that nobody ever says anything about is throwing garbage out this windows. Everything goes out the window while you’re driving. This applies during long distance bus trips and in the cities in taxis. Plastic bottles, empty beverage containers, candy wrappers, dirty diapers, food scraps and more just get tossed whenever you’re done with them. I think people expect that someone who works for the government should clean it up. However, even if they stopped littering in some places and put stuff in trash cans, the garbage just gets hauled to be dumped in the local river anyway. This is what they did in Leymebamba anyway and I’m sure most other small towns. I’m not sure what they do with garbage in the larger cities, but whatever they do there’s plenty of it in the streets. Sometimes I think they just dump it in abandoned lots.

At least one thing they DON’T have on this hell trip is blaringly loud cumbia music. They did play cumbia for a few hours but I don’t think they could get it loud enough so gave up on it. Someone in Huanchaco the first week we were here said they only thing that matters to a Peruvian when buying a stereo is how loud will it go, and then I thought that seemed an unfair generalization – now I don’t. They have speakers wired up here, but no lights. If you haven’t heard a lot of latin american music before, you probably won’t be able to tell cumbia from salsa (cumbia usually has a rhythm more like a horse’s clip-clop-clip). Either way, salsa or cumbia, it’s not something I would consider worthy of listening to for 5 hours straight, especially since they there’s a group here called “Grupo 5″ that is so popular I think most people really do just listen to them for 5 hours on repeat.

Phew, I’m finally off that bus. I actually managed to sleep for a few hours despite the crowing rooster someone carried on. Of course it took longer than expected, something just short of 21 hours. We’re now sitting in another bus terminal in Sullana, which really doesn’t look like it has anything interesting, waiting to catch another bus to Mancora. From here on out we should start seeing a lot more foreign tourists, which I’m actually quite ready for. Being around almost exclusively Peruvians for the last month and half has definitely shown me I could never live comfortably among them. I don’t think I mentioned staring. There’s two little boys who are just staring at me as I write this. Children and adults do this equally and nobody seems to think it rude, and asking them to stop usually only works for a few seconds before they’re back to just openly staring. They’ll stare even if we’re just sitting still, reading a book, even in areas where I know they see a lot of tourists.

OK, that’s enough for now. I could probably go on, but I’m exhausted and fed up. Hopefully the world looks better after a decent sleep.

Pastores singing and dancing in church

This was my first Christmas away from home. I definitely missed being home with family. It just didn’t feel like Christmas here. No snow, no Christmas tree, no family dinner, weird food, most stores didn’t close, no gift giving and few feelings of familiarity. I think some of these feelings of familiarity are my favorite parts of the holidays. I really wanted a group of people to speak English with.

Not that it was a bad Christmas, just not like home. Christmas Eve was actually when most of the action happened. The day was very quiet and the people we’re staying with don’t seem to have family gatherings. They spent most of the day working on the construction of the new part of their house. There was talk of a shared dinner, but nobody seemed to make it happen, so in the evening we just drank hot chocolate with cheese. Weird combo, huh? And the hot chocolate here isn’t like Swiss Miss. It’s straight from the cocao beans, so it’s really weird and oily. Oh, and paneton which is essentially fruit cake but light and fluffy. It’s pretty gross in my opinion, but it’s a huge deal here. I taught class at night. I didn’t think sutdents would want class at 8 on Christmas Eve, but they did and I had free time so why night. Afterwards we went to church. It started like the same old boring Catholic ceremony, but at the end there were children who sang and danced what sounded like traditional songs. After church they go from house to house to visit people’s nativity scenes and do their songs and dances there. This all takes place after midnight.

Lily, Maibel, Carmen y Arnold our host family for Christmas day lunch

Christmas day was a nonevent really. There were a lot of people hung over in the streets the next day. We heard that the discotech was even open the previous night. Weird. Just not Christmasy. We had lunch with a family, but it’s not like there was any tradition or anything out the ordinary. Kim has a much more complete description, but really Christmas just didn’t feel like a big deal here.

Other than that the last few weeks have been quiet. It rained last weekend so we didn’t go anywhere. We didn’t watch TV at all for the first 3 weeks, but lately we have. A few movies and the Simpsons in Spanish mostly. The children have left for their “summer” vacation, so we don’t have classes in the morning anymore. Besides that I haven’t had any students show up to the evening classes in more than a week. I really has begun to annoy me a great deal how flaky people are here about being at places when they say they will. You wouldn’t believe how many people say, “I’ll definitely be there!” and then don’t show up. Even the people we live with sometimes say they’re going to class, even 15 minutes before class, and then don’t go. It’s like the more certain people sound when they say they’ll do something, the less likely it is. But what can you do? It’s the culture and they just don’t seem to notice when everyone is late or doesn’t show up. At least the children have been showing up to a new afternoon class that we’ve started. We’ll see how many continue to show up conistently.

One of the few things we want to do before heading back is go on a horseback trip to the Laguna de Los Condores. I think this will depend a lot on the weather though. Aside from this, I’m looking forward to getting back on the road again. A month with too much free time turns out to be a little too much for me. I’ve actually at times felt bored, something I don’t think I’d felt almost at all in the last few years. As soon as I’ve felt bored I’ve found something to do, but it’s not what I’d be doing if I was back home in my spare time.

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.

Kim hammock chillin

Vilcabamba proved to be a lovely place to relax for a few weeks. It’s quite a bit more expensive than Peru had been, partly because they use the US dollar for currency, but mostly because of all the foreigners living there. It’s still much cheaper than living back home. Where in the US can you get an amazing massage for $10/hour?

We spent a few nights at El Jardin Escondido, which is probably the nicest moderately priced hostal ($22 for two people) close to the center. It’s run by a Canadian I think is named Marcel. That’s where I got my first massage from a woman named Piedad. There’s a ton and a half of massage places, but we were told by a few people that Piedad was one of the best, including Piedad herself. It’s a Swedish massage style, which I normally don’t care too much for, but she’s strong so it’s good. Besides the massage I swam in the pool, chilled in the hot tub, relished eating decent Mexican food and good bread again and finished reading Catch 22 again.

Cool Window at Madre Tierra

After roughing at the moderate priced place we decided to spring for what we had heard was true luxury – Madre Tierra. It definitely is luxurious and beautiful, but we were more than a little annoyed at the terrible communication at the reception desk. We got there and nobody could tell us prices for rooms. Apparently only one person at a time knows the prices and she was out of town for a few hours. You’d think they’d have a price list. Some guy brought us to a room and told us it was $30 a night. We figured that wasn’t too bad so we set our stuff down. Then we clarified and found out it was $30 per person. Finally after threatening to leave they offered to let us have a room for $20 a night – per person of course. Not the one they first showed us though. It was pouring rain and we had to see what this place was about so we stayed. At the end their credit card machine didn’t work and they said that they hadn’t included IVA (tax) in the original price. I think everyone else includes IVA in their price, so I was pretty fed up by this point. Anyway, onto the good parts.

Swinging from a Jungle Vine

The stay includes breakfast and dinner, which were very good. We did a spa treatment that lasted 5 hours and was $45. That included a facial, a steam treatment, a salt scrub, a mud bath, a foot and head massage and probably something else that I’ve forgotten by now. We were in there being pampered for a LONG time. We came out very relaxed – until trying to check out and dealing with the reception desk…

We also quickly undid all the relaxing by heading to the Neverland farm, which I’ve broken out to a separate post. After returning from the farm we spent a few nights at a hostal out of town a couple kilometers called Izhcayluma. This was my favorite place overall. It has an awesome view, beautiful buildings and a terrific atmosphere. The atmosphere is mostly due to all the cool travelers you meet there. Adventurous, crazy, interesting travelers seem to congregate there, and the onsite bar makes for some hilarious and fascinating conversations. One Scottish guy kept offering people $100 to bring back the ears of robbers who have been plaguing some of the local hiking trails. A lot of the staff is volunteers from European countries, so the service is way better than with local running things, sadly.

Piling into a pickup to go for a hike

We went on a hike with a local guide whose name I don’t remember to Podocarpus National Park one day. It was a very pretty hike, but nothing spectacular. The ride there was notable due to riding in the back of a pickup through very pretty scenery. That night we stayed at a cheap hostal ($5 per person) in the center to be close the next morning to leave on our horseback trip with Gavin, which was a blast. That’s also a separate blog post.

Once we got back from the horseback trip we spent a night at another hostal run by some French. Funny how all the interesting hostals are run by foreigners. We also both got another massage. This one was from the lady at Shanta’s bar whose name I forget and she does a lot of physical therapy type stuff where she makes your body crack in all sorts of ways I’ve never experienced before. By the last night we noticed that we knew a ton of the people walking around the central plaza, especially after talking with Gavin. The town was starting to feel a little too small and weird once we knew enough about the crazy foreigners living there. Fortunately we we’re on our way back to peru now.

Emoliente

We’ve really left the gringo trail now. From Cajamarca we took a 10 sole ($3.33) 6 hour bus ride toward Chachapoyas to Celendin on unpaved roads. Even though the roads were unpaved, the trip was quite a bit more comfortable than the one from Trujillo to Cajamarca. They’re also widening the roads all the way to Celendin and I believe they’re going to pave them too. Celendin was much more modern than I expected after going so long without seeing any major civilization. It’s actually a fairly pretty little town that I’m sure will start attracting more tourists with the completion of the highway.

We checked into a hostal and got a small dinner. A rather common occurence at restaurants is to pick something off the menu and then be told they don’t have it. I think we tried to choose 2 or 3 different things from the menu at Hostal Celendin that weren’t available. In general the service is terrible too. After the food comes you have to hunt your waiter or waitress down to get anything additional including the check. I guess that’s why there’s no tipping in Peru.

6AM was wakeup time to get to Llanguat and some hotsprings. We considered walking the 21km to get there, but decided against it as it began to rain. Instead as far as the guide book indicates there’s only a 7AM combi to Llanguat. Little did we know combi meant people and livestock carrier. We shared a 2 hours trip down an insane number of switchbacks with a loaded combi full of people, sheep and chickens. Kim had to keep pushing a lamb back to keep him from stepping on the other animals.

We passed through Llanguat, which looks like about 15 houses and a church, and the combi dropped us off at the hotsprings. Unfortunately we couldn’t try the mud baths since the river was too high and uncrossable. We went in the pool, which could easily be mistaken for the mudbaths. After an unsuccessful attempt to find a river crossing, we relaxed for a bit in the inside hot pools like there were in Cajamarca, only the water wasn’t as hot. The owner of the place was very friendly and was very interested in learning how to better develop a tourist industry. It sounds like more than a few people in the Celendin area feel this way.

Getting back proved to be a bit of an ordeal. We walked in the rain for close to 2 hours back up the switchback road before a combi finally came by. We hopped on and got 2 of the most umcomfortable seats. My butt still hurts. I don’t know if the 2 hours of hiking uphill in the rain or the remaining hour in the combi made me more tired, but once we got back to Celendin we ate dinner and went to bed, which means that we didn’t have time to visit the local village of Jose Galvez where the women are supposedly the most beautiful in Peru.