Tsunami warning

Trip Start Dec 26, 2010

Trip End Jul 01, 2011

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Where I stayed

Naylamp Huanchaco
Read my review - 5/5 stars

(Huanchaco hotels)

Flag of Peru Huanchaco, Peru
Thursday, March 10, 2011

We started the day going to Sechin, which is a site near Casma. Sechin was built about 3400 years ago, and while you cannot see much of the pyramid, you can see the outside murals with carved stones of the successful Warrior and the heads and body parts of the people who he killed. It is really graphic and absolutely unique! From all ths sites we saw in nothern Peru, this is the one I liked the most. There was also a small museum theer and the guide that we hired at the site gave us a really cool tour of the museum and the site. We saw a tatooed mummy, which was very different from what we had seeing before.

We then tool a bus towards Chimbote, where we connected to a bus to Trujillo. Our guide book had warned us that Chimbote was a dump and that it smelled like seaweed, since it is the fishing capital of Peru. You wouldn't believe how BAD the whole town smelled!!!! Luckly we did not have to wait long for the bus to Trujillo, but the smell of the town was instilled in my nose for a while.

We deiced to camp more and found a great site in Huanchaco, which is the beach town by Trujillo. Naylamp is both a hostel and a camping site right accross the street from the beach. The site for the camping is upstairs from the hostel, so you get a nice view of the ocean. We looked for a place to eat in Huanchaco and it was quiet hard to find something. We should have eaten at the hostel, but John usually has a policy to never eat at the place you are staying.... unless I beg.

Next day we wake up and decide to take an organized tour to Chan Chan and Huaca de la Luna. The tour started at 10 am, and before we left, we heard about the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. How aweful! We also heard of the threat in Peru and that we would get an update in the afternoon. We went for the tour anyway, but I had that worry in the back of my mind. The Huaca de la Luna is nice because you can see the different murals and colors that the Moche civilization built there. They used to build one pyramid on top of the other, so you can see the different layers in some of the excavated parts of the pyramid. We then had a break for lunch in Trujillo and went to Huaca del Arco Iris (nothing really there) and Chan Chan. This one was built by the Chimu civilization, which was the only that really resisted to the Inca colonization in the north. They built this town with adobe, which means that a lot of the constructions have eroded and look like a pile of mud. Not as exciting as I thought.

The next stop on the tour was a visit to the beach of Huanchaco. Well, if we could go through. The police was not letting cars through because of the tsunami warning. SO we went back to Trujilo for dinner. I decided to play conservative and we stayed at a hotel in Trujillo. Next morning, we took a bus back to Huanchaco and packed our bags to go to Chiclayo. Someone at the hostel told us that the people from the lower rooms were moved up and they had to evacuate the hotel for a couple of hours. I am glad we were not there... otherwised I would be pretty scared.

I checked my Facebook and saw that a good friend of mine, Carlos, who lived in Tokyo, was posting live updates on what was happening around him. God be with them!