Trujillo - Huanchaco - Chicama

Since returning from Mancora, I’ve been getting to know my ‘home city’ of Trujillo a bit better.

Peace in the house was shattered by Sunday morning’s ‘British Invasion’ (several English students arrived all at once, and British seems to have taken over as the dominant accent in the house (note that I’ve adopted the term British Invasion as if I’m nothing to do with it!)) along with the return of all the other volunteers from their travels. It was great to see everyone back even after knowing them for only a couple of weeks. 

After an hour two working at home, when the house starts to stir, I head to a cafe in the centre, laptop in Mancora-purchased duck-egg blue shoulder bag in one hand and floral fan in the other. I must look a bit of a princess strutting around thus, seeking out the prettiest colonial cafes with wifi and getting distracted by artisan markets along the way, but it’s the perfect combination of work, cultural pursuits, sight-seeing and juice-sampling (the fruit here is heaven – who KNEW a banana could taste so good?).  

Trujillo improves a lot with further exploration. The central area is a colourful grid of colonial buildings interspersed with trees, churches, fountains and parks. Maybe it was just the culture shock and exhaustion when I arrived and first looked around, but I’ve definitely seen a new side.

The city is also dotted with little restaurants offering a delicious two course lunch for around £1.50. Like the fruit, even a plain salad is an experience; it’s even better followed by fantastic fresh seafood or tasty chicken or goat dishes though. Today I got jelly too!

Like everything, there are irritations. It’s busy and noisy in some streets, and the heat can get a bit much. Taxis flag pedestrians down, not the other way around (as if it didn’t occur to you that you might want a taxi until one has tooted it’s horn and slowed down alongside you...) and you have to perfect the assertive ‘finger waggle’ to ward them off.

 As I’ve mentioned before, there aren’t many foreigners in Trujillo, and getting constantly stared at can be tiring. Everyone knows that Latin American men, in particular, stare, whistle and shout comments at women, it’s just part of the culture. However, I really don’t think it can be acceptable in any culture for someone to behave like this whilst driving a funeral car as part of a procession...

For some real peace, local beach town Huanchaco (Hwan-chack-oh) is always the answer. The buses to Huanchaco pass by the house, with conductors hanging out the door shouting ‘Huanchaco-Huanchaco-Huanchaco!’ at regular intervals like some kind of very exciting tongue-twister. Although it gets very busy on the beach, there’s the same laid-back vibe that you find in surf-centred towns all over the world. There are some Spanish schools and more NGOs based in Huanchaco, so it’s also got more of an international flavour from the numerous students and volunteers based there. One of Huanchaco’s main distinguishing features besides the surf, are the reed fishing boats known as caballitos (little horses). They are all propped up on the beach, against the promenade wall, and the fishermen paddle them out to fish, then effectively surf them back to shore.

A couple of us visited another coastal town, Chicama, on Sunday. Surfing is world class here, with the world's longest lefthand pointbreak (do I sound like I know what I'm talking about?) . However, it's not at all high profile because of the difficult access, and foreign visitors are even more unusual than they are in Trujillo.

(This pic was from the bus on the way back from Chicama, I just added it for variety - the scenery around here is amazing.)

But the surf was not good on Sunday, the waves were not even suitable for beginners, breaking very near the sand, so what could I do but lie on the beach and eat ice cream? I say this, as it seemed like the best option, but due to high winds, it was a bit of an ordeal getting constantly showered by sand. If we’d kept still there for a couple of hours, I’m pretty sure we’d have been buried. I’m still finding sand in pockets of items I wasn’t even wearing that day, not to mention in my teeth! 

Lunch in Chicama was an experience. We found a cevicheria (place that serves ceviche) which was basically just someone’s house complete with hamster, and ‘adorable’ little boy running back and forth through the living room excitedly shouting at the top of his voice.  As we’ve often observed here, there were still Christmas decorations up on the run down turquoise coloured walls. The room was simple and run down with a concrete floor and a row of faded, sagging orange arm chairs along one wall. They served two dishes, and since one was £1 a plate, and one was about 60p, we got a mixture. They served drinks too, but this meant asking what we wanted, and then going round to the shop to get them (for no profit whatsoever).

My other Chicama restaurant experience was interesting. When the heat and sand pelting got a bit much on the beach, I elected to go and sit in a cafe in the shade and read my book. I did this for a while, thinking someone might come and serve me. No such luck. A man from a nearby table came and asked to take a photo of me and I had no reasonable objection to this. He later came back and asked for a close-up (because he "wants a photo of a foreign woman sitting in a cafe reading..."). It then transpired that it was his cafe (or so he said), so I was more than a little confused as to why it’s ok to take a photo of a customer when they’ve been sitting for 20 minutes without being offered a drink...  It all got too much when a group of young Peruvians pulled up in the moto-taxi, music blaring, and put their seats so close around that they may as well have been on top of mine and continued to entertain us all with their moto stereo. I decided I could put up with the sand shower after all.

Now over half way through the trip, I've got just a week-and-a-half left at SKIP. This is hard to believe and really quite sad. One of the new volunteers asked me how long it took me to settle in, to which I replied that I don't think I have yet...

(surf school in Huanchaco)