Chasing Aphroditie: Chiclayo 8/14/07

We caught the 7am early morning from Cajamarca to our next destination, Chiclayo. Our crew was intact with me, Sasha, and the newest addition to the team, Matty. It was a beautiful 6 hour ride as we descended from the towering Andes into the coastal desert of Peru, which runs through the whole coast of Peru.

The desert is how you would imagine it . . . lonesome, dry and empty except for the giant piles of garbage which create their own "havens" and break the peace of the desert. And it seems like it goes on forever. Little rivers snake through it, run around little "dams" made by farmers and feed their fields. Outside of the small green squares which grow rice, corn and the like, the desert is waiting with the patience only it has waiting to swallow up the green fields at first sign of drought. We however, drove past this lonely scene as we made our way to the coast.

Chiclayo is said to be a modern city, the commercial center of northern Peru. Really it's just another almost big city with its street markets, it's Plaza de Armas, the church looking over it, the bodegas, the crippled begging on the sidewalks, the rotisserie chicken joints on every corner, tiny combis (little buses which pack too many people in them) with guys screaming out destinations onto us, and the Peruvians going about their business.

We stepped off the bus ready to be courted by the local taxi drivers. Probably about 90% of the cars are taxis, all fighting over you. And all the taxis have their own personalities. Some with zebra designed seat covers, some with leopard ones. Some with neon lights inside and of course outside of the car. In fact some of the decorations would make you feel like being in a rap video. All I felt I needed was a bottle of Crystal and a feather in my hat. Pimpin' ain't easy!

Finally after travelling for what seems like ages, we have reached the pacific coast in a small town called Pimentel.

And of course there was a welcoming committee waiting for us...

The coast was not how I imagined it. Cold, windy, and empty just like the town. It felt like a plague came through here before us and took everyone except for the dogs, the little kids selling keychains and the angry Argentinian bum who cursed at me and Matty with every bad English word he had in his vocabulary. But here we are finally across the continent. It means a lot because almost the whole way for months, we took boats, smelly overpacked buses and horses to get here. Wow!

Really, Chiclayo is most famous for a recently found Moche Tomb of The Lord of Sipan. You see, back in 1987 there was an unusual amount of gold and other cool artifacts on the local black market. I personally couldn't find this market. It sounds like it would have a lot of cool stuff for sale. But no, no sign of it. Well, through some investigative work, the authorities discovered new tombs that we're getting robbed. Needless to say they stopped that, dug everything up and put it into a state of the art museum.

We checked it out of course. It was an amazing museum with lifelike wax figures of warriors and jewelry on display. We weren't allowed to bring any cameras, but me and Matty being rebels and all brought ours in. Here are some pics before I got caught with my camera and got escorted out:

Yeah, I didn't get to the good stuff yet. After, we checked out Tucume's valley of the pyramids. This guy came to meet us.

Its an area of about 50 broken down pyramids which look more like big sand bumps in the ground. Those ridges below are the pyramids. Peru is so rich with archaeological sites that very little work is being done at this place. The grounds are littered with broken pieces of pottery, human bones, etc. Of course this is in places that tourists are not allowed to enter, but we helped ourselves there. I don't intend to make us sound like a bunch of misfits, but our curiosity gotten the best of us. We were like little kids filled with adventure stories wandering around the site.

We climbed the mountain in the middle of the ruins and got to enjoy the incredible view.

Also after all of our adventures, we found an awesome little taco place in Chiclayo. Sorry, no pics.
Anyway guys, I'll talk to you later. Gotta get back to the video game on the computer. Peace!
Oh, I will leave you with Matty rockin' out his Spanish with the taxi driver before the guy tries to rip him off...