Huanchaco

Chuanchaco is a small beach town on the coast of Northern Peru. A pretty chill place, with good surf and some pretty cool ruins. We arrived and check into Naylamp, a really nice hostel located right on the beach, complete with roof top patio, resturant and internet access. The town is a popular beach destiation for Peruvians and since Trijouli (population 700,000) is only a 15 minute drive away, it gets pretty busy on the weekends.

The main strip of the town winds its way along the beach and is populated with resturants speciallizing in Ceviche, a dish composed of fish, squid, octopus and other marine life, marinated in lime juice and onions. It is a typical Peruvian dish and Huanchaco is supposed to have some of the best in the country so I gave it a try. I guess not all ceviches are made equal and the resturant we were at was not among those suggested in the guide book. My stomach didn´t feel very good for the next few days.

One of the cool things about Huanchaco is that the local fisherman still go out to fish in traditional reed boats, as they have been doing for thousands of years. You can see them lined up along the beach and heading out through the surf for the daily fishing.

Just inland of Huanchaco is the acient adobe city of Chan Chan. It was once a very large city of over 24 square kilometers, although only 14 are left today. As you can imagine, adobe does not stand up against the tests of time as well as stone, so much of the city is just lumps of dirt now. There has been an extensive effort to restore a large area of it and many pieces were buried in the sands and therefore protected. By duplicating what they found preserved they have recreated a section that gives you a pretty good idea of what the city was once like. We went on a guided tour, which was very informative. There were some very cool frescos that were well preserved of different animals important to the Chimu people. The size of some of the structures was amazing, some walls were well over 5 meters, especially considering they were only made of adobe. The Chimu even created their own pools by digging down until they reached the water table. After exploring the ruins we went over to a near by muesum that had lots of artifacts and pottery that the grave robbers had missed. All very interesting and a great introduction into acient peruvian life.The other thing that Huanchaco is famous for is its surf, so we couldn´t leave town without heading out to the breaks. We rented boards from a local shop and headed out to the beach. Before we could make it to the water we were swarmed by groups of Peruvians who all wanted to take our picture. We posed for the first few groups but when people started running down the beach towards us, cameras in hand (I am not exagerating here) we made a break for the ocean. I am not sure if it was because we were a couple of fair haired north americans or there is a website out there where Peruvians try to get gringos to pose for them, but it was a little odd to receive all that attention.

It turned out that our surfing skills had not magically improved since our previous attempts, so after a while our arms were too dead from paddling to do anything but float in the surf. We managed to catch a few waves between us, but nothing crazy. The water was actually pretty cold (damn those cold currents) so I didn´t even notice that I stepped on a sea urchin until we start to thaw out.

One of the other places we visited was an old church up on the hill above the town. It is the second oldest church in Peru, although not particularly spectacular. There was a nice view of the town, however, from the top.

We were getting used to the lazy days on the beach, the great food and amazing sunsets, so it was with a little hesitation that we packed up, and headed for Lima and the rest of our Peruvian adventures.