Huanchaco - Where not much happens but is dramatic nontheless

Well, I have spent the last 4 days in a small beachside town called Huanchaco, more time than I wanted but more on that later. It is a quite kinda touristy beach hangout with a laidback atmosphere. Located on the North coast of Peru near a large town called Trujillo.When I arrived I was not really impressed with the place after spending time in the Peruvian Andes where the woman wear traditional dress (yes, most of them even the young ones) and carry there children in wraps on their backs. Where you look out the window and see huge mountains to me that feels like the "real peru". So it was quite a change of scene but I have had an interesting time here.

It is hard to describe my time here, somewhat surreal. I arrived at 7am tired from an overnight bus ride, having to wait for a bed to be made for me I was greeted by O'Douce a french canadian hippie who taught me a new handshake that is starts off with waving your arm around like snake and then interlink your hands to form a circle which is more spiritual than a business handshake. She then asked my birthdate and age and told me I was a yellow seed in my year of the white wizard. Hmmm..... Apparently it means that my power is timelessness, my action is to enchant, well thats natural ;) and my essence is my receptivity.She is studing Mayan astrological signs, and believes that we have all been drawn to Huanchaco for a spiritual gathering. As crazy as she sounds, I have been chatting to her in the last few days and although I take it with a grain of salt she has some interesting things to say about life.

Well the main reason I came here was to visit some ancient sites firstly Chan Chan a site of a huge mud brick city of the Chimu people most of which is now just lumps of mud but it was once the largest pre-columbian city and was built in 1300AD which preceded the Incas who eventually conquered it after cutting off the water supply and waging combat. Then it was looked by the spanish afterwards. There is one palace left that has been restored and has impressive mud/stonework and has many tombs, and rooms to explore. Also I saw there crazy peruvian hairless dogs! Wacky!

Then to Las Huacas del Sol de la Luna (temple of the sun and moon) there is not much left of the sun temple but the moon one is facinating. They are Moche temples and predate Chan Chan by 700 years. It is facinating because the stonework is coloured and the colours have been preserved after such a long time. The reason for this preservation is that there are actually 5 temples built on top of each other, apparently when a new family came into power the old temple was covered in mud bricks and a new temple build on top. So at the moment they are peeling off laters to reveal the stonework underneath!

Well back to me! I have had some pretty bad stomach problems now I do not want to get into two many details. I had to spend two extra days here. Originally it started with diahorrea and then on the day my bus was due to leave I developed chills and a fever so had to spend the next two days here recovering. I think I am in the mend the fever is gone and I can eat a little food. Despite taking some antibiotics the bowels are still playing up but I will head to a doctor in Lima to get a check up.

Crazy thing happened today, sitting in the courtyard of the hostel chatting to some German girls. Today a roudy tour group of Brits arrived, anyway one of them was too lazy to give something to her friend so through it across the courtyard to a friend on the balcony. Her friend leant over the flimsy bamboo railing to catch it, the railing cracked then broke and she went crashing down on to a set of stairs below, she got taken off in an ambulance. Freaky thing, I saw the whole thing happend in slow motion and heard the bamboo crack but it was like one of those slow-mo car crash things I was not able to say nooooooooooo... I think she will be ok at worst a busted arm.

Well tonight I am meant to leave to Lima, but today there is a transport strike, and although my bus is running it may be difficult to get to the station but the hostel owner offered me a ride if there is a taxi shortage so cross fingers for me.