In Search of Sunshine - Part 1

Firstly yes, may I acknowledge and apologise for the recently reduced blog frequency before my last post. This will now be dragged back from famine to feast frequency and stories anew will flow once more. Since Cusco, the primary target of a warm beach with sunshine has resulted in a manic dash north to reach a beach. This may seem a little odd that we had a desperate need to skip a large portion of Peru in search for a beach but it's time to dispel a plausible illusion: I've been pretty much solidly cold for fucking months now. Buenos Aires hit zero on a regular basis; the frozen south did what it said on the tin; Northern Argentina and Rurrenbaque provided brief warming respites, but the rest of the time working through Northern Chile, Bolivia and Southern Peru have been spent at altitudes of between 2500 and 4200 meters above sea level. For those who were too busy writing on their pencil cases or trying to stifle rogue erections in GCSE science, the higher you are the colder it is. Hence, when travelling the 'West Side' route of South America, you're almost constantly moving along the spine of the Andes. So, the search for sunshine became one of code red priority and plans were put into action.

The route to sun...

1. Lima, the capital city of Peru, and my jumbled namesake, is a large dark bustling city comprised of two main areas: Miraflores, the expensive, rich and pretty area, and El Centro: the cheaper area where the people stare and the shadows seem to loom everywhere menacingly. Naturally we went for the cheaper option and made sure that any evening deployments for food were done in taxis. In the evening Emily and I went to eat in a nunnery, which sold steak (holy steak I would presume) which could be eaten while the french speaking Peruvian nuns sake Ave Maria to us. Naturally after such a sacred experience we went out to get sozzled. We did so with efficiency and awoke to a day awaiting our next bus with impressive hangovers. Stage 1 mission: Accomplished

2. Trujillo, after an amazing nightbus journey, was to be the cultural stop on our route North. Home to the pre-Columbian (I'm not really sure what that means) city Chan Chan which once ruled the society of local fishermen for miles afar. Trujillo itself was confusing and busy, and finding a bus to Chan Chan proved time consuming (yet still much cheaper than paying five times the price for an excursion). After being dropped by the bus in the middle of nowhere, we walked 3km to the Chan Chan ruins to find the ancient mud/sand city wonderfully preserved. In fact the preservation wasn't at all preservation but reconstruction, from scratch, and the whole place, in spite of its historical significance was a rather farcical attempt to recreate a seaside Machu Pichu. We fled to a small fishing village, destroying two bottles of wine as effectively as the years of pacific wind and rain would have destroyed an abandoned Chan Chan. The next leg of our journey would hopefully be our last for a short while, as it would be to Mancora, the reputed sun, sea, sand and surf spot of Peru. Finally, after months of cold, would tomorrow be the the start of sunshine?