Adventuras con Autobuses

Mancora - Trujillo - Huanchaco

Since I last wrote, we´ve ben continuing on down the Peruvian coast and are currently staying about a third of the way down at another beach town, Huanchaco. It´s been going very well - no fights with James and no major problems, although we have had some interesting experiences on buses.

I suppose we were spoiled on our first bus ride in South America, for on that one we had tons of leg room, there were two bathrooms and multiple tvs that played movies, the bus was practically empty, and they stopped and waited for us to do customs and immigration at the Peruvian border. It was with this luxury in mind that we booked a ten hour night bus from Mancora to Trujillo. However, it was the complete opposite of what we were expecting. When the bus finally arrived, we couldn´t even get up the stairs to the seats for there were people filling the aisle - planning on standing the entire way. We managed to push our way up and the driver kicked two people out of our seats (fortunately we had bought the tickets in advance and so had assigned seats or it would have been the aisle for us!), but it was almost impossible to even get in our seats from the aisle for the ones in front were reclined so much there was no space to stand upright between the seats. We folded ourselves in and settled in for the long ride. I forced myself to keep my eyes closed and think of open spaces to keep from going crazy with claustrophobia. Sleep wasn´t easy, but it did help pass the time. It was also fairly cold for all the windows were open, but the fresh air was more of a relief than not for it helped quell the smell of so many bodies in one space. Needless to say, we were very pleased to finally arrive at Trujillo and we went straight to our hostel and crashed there for several hours.

Trujillo itself is a small city with Spanish colonial buildings. We arrived on a Sunday, so many stores were closed, but we were able to find a cafe that had the Euro final on. By eating slowly and ordering dessert, we were able to make our meal last the entire game, but had there been any over time we´d have been in trouble. Near Trujillo are the ancient ruins of Chan Chan made by the pre-Incan civilization the Chimu, so that was interesting to visit. It was as if we were in Egypt or the desert for all of their walls and buildings were made of mud and sand.

We had taken a taxi out to the ruins, but decided to try our luck with public transportation. Lonely Planet made it seem very easy - you just hop on one of the orange and white buses and you´re golden. The getting on was easy, but unfortunately we weren´t sure where to get off. We didn´t pass any of Trujillo that we recognized and so didn´t get off. We finally saw a street sign and worked out on the map that we had already passed through the city and were on the other side. We figured we could always get off and get a taxi back, but by then we had entered a more run down part of the city and there were no cabs to be seen. We decided to wait for the bus to do a loop and turn right to bring us back to the city center, but it kept going further and further into a ghetto and eventually went right off the map we had. Still hoping the bus would do a loop, we stayed on as everyone else got off and we went off the paved road onto a dirt track lined by mud shacks. Eventually the bus came to the end of the line - a gas station and parking lot for the orange and white buses. We asked the driver how to get back to the city, feeling like complete idiotic gringos, but he was very nice and told us which bus to take. It did the reverse of what we had just done. So, after about 2 hours on the bus, we got off, hailed a cab, and went home.

After such an adventure yesterday, today we decided not to mess around with public transport and for a whole 10 soles more (about $3) we took a cab instead to the beach. The plan is to stay a couple of nights here, enjoying the last beach and sun we´ll probably see until Brazil, and then head south to Lima. It´s another 10 hour bus ride, but the man assured us there will be more leg room, so here´s to hoping!