JJ's Travelogue

Leaving Cajamarca, I headed back to the coast – to Trujillo, a large city of not much interest. Spent a few days wandering around the colonial centre viewing the pretty architecture and large square; but as one moves away from the center the city quickly devolves into urban blight. In an example of the law of unintended consequences, in 1990 the city banned buses from the city center in trying to decrease smog and traffic. Unfortunately this lack of buses caused an explosion of taxis, resulting in far worse air and sound pollution.

I’ve only been in Peru a few weeks and already I’ve witnessed several demonstrations and parades. There must be a rich tradition of protest here. One particularly grueling incident occurred in 1932 when angry union strikers attacked and killed 10 army soldiers. In retaliation the government rounded up 1,000 union members and summarily executed them by firing squad.

The demonstrations I’ve witnessed have varied from schoolchildren protesting energy reduction (?) to workers striking. The parades have varied from schools celebrating their founding to religious (Catholic) endeavors. Lots of these. One night as I was wandering around I heard the sound of a marching band. Like a moth drawn to the flame, I sought the source. Imagine if you will several hundred people dressed in black solemnly walking the streets. Leading the charge were about 20 dancers in ordered rows wearing costumes made from burlap bags and in blackface. Next came a drum line in the same outfits and makeup. Then came the devout women. Many holding crosses, worry beads, or photos of saints. A couple dozen of them held aloft an effigy of Mary, carrying it the way pallbearers carry a casket. She was life-sized, standing on a large elaborate rostrum, and surrounded by hundreds of roses neatly arranged. Since this was at night, she was lit by a halo of dozens of compact fluorescent bulbs surrounding her.

Next came the men. They were holding aloft an effigy as well – this one was of Judas. Arcing over his head was a halo of neon lights spelling out “San Judas Tadea”. The electrical cord for his neon and flood lights strung back to several people holding it aloft with sticks, and eventually back to a pickup truck with a generator in the back. A kid was playing the role of cable puller.

Between the two effigies was the priest in all his garbous robes, talking on a megaphone, and surrounded by a small cadre of incense swingers.
Bringing up the rear was the band – only about a half-dozen players, all middle-aged men, they were fantastic. Clarinet, horns, snare, bass drum. All wearing matching black suits but not marching in formation, just strolling along casually to the beat. And what a beat it was! Happy, catchy, in the New Orleans second-line style (to my ears. I’d love to know what they call it here).
I loved it! This is not the sort of thing that’s listed in any guidebooks or websites, yet happens all the time. It’s probably the special day of the patron saint for that particular congregation – not notable enough to make the news or guides, yet wonderful for a tourist to come upon.

After a couple of nights in Trujillo I escaped to the mellow beach town of Huanchaco, just a half-hour away. I ostensibly came here to pick up the travel speakers that my friends Jessica and James had left for me. A funny saga – back in January, I bought travel speakers online and had them shipped to Arnie in New York, who was kind enough to include them in a care package she and Rissie sent to me in Bogota. Which I eventually picked up in May. The speakers turned out to be a lemon; I had a fun time trying to get them fixed in southern Colombia, but to no avail. The company agreed to send a replacement set anywhere in the U.S. Jessica and James had a gig down here and it looked like we were going to meet up, so I had them shipped to their home in Colorado. Unfortunately I was too slow in traveling to meet up with them when they were here in late June, so they left the speakers at a hotel with word that I would be along in a few weeks to get them.

Ha! A few weeks turned into a few months. I thought for sure the proprietor would have sold or given away the speakers by now, but nope – there they were, safe and sound. What a sweet, honest woman. You can be sure I tipped her for that. They really are amazing little speakers – they put out great sound, way more bass than their size should be able to produce. So kudos to the company for their help in getting me a replacement set. It’s so nice to have music without having to wear my headphones. And only 11 months since I bought them!

I’m really digging Huanchaco. There are a plethora of nice and cheap hotels – I found a clean, modern, large room with queen sized bed, cable tv, small fridge, WiFi, and balcony – just a block from the beach, and with use of the kitchen and rooftop deck – for $12/night. Yes!
As I’m checking into a new hotel I always ask where the dangerous areas of town are. Trujillo, for example, has many. But here in Huanchaco was the first response I’ve gotten like this: “You can walk anywhere, at anytime of day or night, and be safe.” Great news for someone who loves to just walk for hours exploring neighborhoods.

It’s the off-season here, partly because the weather is not terribly sunny or warm, and partly because the bulk of the tourists come during North American summer vacations. Which suits me fine – I’m not such a lay-out-on-the-beach kinda guy anyway. I actually prefer beach towns in the off-season, when it’s relaxed and you can get to know the long-term residents. Coney Island in autumn, for example.

Surfers, however, are here year-round. Apparently this whole stretch of northern Peru is legendary for it’s surf breaks.. and I don’t even know what that means. I should try it sometime, it looks fun. But I just can’t be bothered. They’re all wearing wet suits – which means cold water – and I’m a wimp! Besides which, I’ve had a cold for the past week and don’t feel very well. Somehow I think getting cold and wet probably wouldn’t do much to heal me.

As you know, I’m not a big fan of museums or of visiting crumbling historical sites – I prefer interacting with the here-and-now. But there are dozens of important ones around here, so I relented and visited one such archaeological site: Chan Chan. For being the largest pre-Columbian city in South America (dating from 850 AD), it’s surprisingly neglected. Archaeologists have uncovered and preserved a small portion of it, which is stunning, but the vast majority of the site sits unguarded and unprotected out in the elements and is slowly being destroyed by El Niño rains, grave robbers, and general entropy. One can’t help but thinking that if this major historical site were in Europe it would be protected and preserved with much care and funding. But this is a developing nation that doesn’t have the resources to take care of the basic needs of it’s current citizens, let alone preserve ruins from the past.

I observed some archaeologists working, and frankly can hardly imagine a more daunting, arduous task. Spending years in one small area, having to take all your encouragement to keep sifting and carefully scraping away each day from a minute bone fragment you might find only once every few months. No thank you.

The citadel that has been preserved is an impressive complex. It’s enormous, yet is only maybe 5% of the entire city of Chan Chan. The walls are now only 4′ – 6′ high and look artistically sculpted on the top. But that’s all due to weathering. Originally the outer walls were an imposing 50′ – 60′ high! The inner walls were a bit lower and are decorated with reliefs of sea otters and squirrels, which interestingly were a fertility symbol at the time. Even now with the walls so low, the ocean is impossible to hear despite it being just a few hundred meters away. It’s really calm and tranquil inside the warren. On the day that I visited a stage was being set up for a concert. What an impressive place to play – like Pink Floyd’s film at Pompeii.

The pre-Columbian civilizations around here certainly had none of the moral qualms of Europe at the time. Archaeologists have unearthed ceramic art graphically depicting every conceivable form of sexual practice, from necrophilia to anal intercourse. They were also known for their human sacrifices; many of the granite carvings show decapitated heads hanging from the bodies of their defeated conquests. Interestingly, the dead (including rulers) were laid to rest in a flexed position, sometimes sitting or crouching. This is typical of this entire epoch, from 1130 B.C to 1240 A.D.

Besides the recent surfer phenomenon, Huanchaco is known for the reed boats of it’s fishermen. The boats are called “little reed horses” because of the way the fisherman straddles the boat while collecting fish in the inner cavity. This style of boat goes back 3,000 years, although called by a different name then (since horses didn’t exist in South America until the Spaniards introduced them). Some say this constitutes the first form of surfing, due to the way the boats ride the large waves. I love the confluence of modern and ancient, like the fisherman in the photo below wearing an Adidas shirt but using a fishing technique handed down to him through hundreds of generations.

The reeds these boats are made from grow on the beach just north of town. You can stroll past large tracts of them and along the way pass an unfinished neighborhood that looks like a modern-day Chan Chan. A a large complex of a hundred or so dwellings that were just never completed. The strange thing is there’s all kinds of different construction techniques (concrete, rammed earth, adobe, etc), but they’re all in the same state of ruin/uncompletion. Rather than finishing one house or one section then moving on to the next, it looks like they were all started at the same time, but when the walls were around 5′ high, the entire thing was abandoned. I’m really curious what the story is with this place. Sometimes there is a guard at a shack along the sandy dirt road that leads there. What he’s guarding, I can’t imagine. Buses and taxis pass through the ghost town to who knows where – there doesn’t appear to be another town as far as the eye can see in that direction. When it’s misty and dark and you can hear the waves crashing just a few dozen yards away, the whole thing feels very Twilight Zone.

In a clever use of Twitter, an American couple (travel bloggers – the man is the photographer and woman is the writer – just like Jessica and James and the other multimedia friends I met in Guatemala, Alex and Sarah) that are volunteering here saw that I was in town and reached out to me – simply by doing a saved search for “Huanchaco” on Twitter. Very cool, I’ll have to try that in the future as a way to meet people.
In another instance of social media stalking, I was propositioned (sight unseen!) by a Couchsurfer in Trujillo. Weird. Although I will eventually get on Facebook, I’m not looking forward to that being one more major crack in my privacy.

Next up: back to the mountains!