Trippin

Yesterday, we visited Chan Chan, Trujillo´s answer to Machu Picchu, made completely out of adobe. It looked a little lame from far away, but the actual park was pretty impressive. There was an innumerable amount of tall mud-brick walls with decorations carved into their bases. Most of the decorations were either pelicans or fish, but they also had walls that were built to looks like nets. It´s hard to explain, so check out Ansley´s blog for pictures.

At 1:45 we left Trujillo for Chiclayo, 3 hours to the north. We were somewhat dismayed to learn that Frede would be coming with us (bless her paranoid peruvian heart), but in the end it turned out to be a blessing. In Chiclayo we hoped to catch a 12 hour bus to Chachapoyas. As we entered a taxi in Chiclayo, Frede pulled her classic "They´re missionaries from the Adventist church with little money! Lower the price!" Although this was annoying and embarrasing to us, it paid off this time, as the taxi driver was an adventist. For the next 15 minutes Frede and the driver gabbed about mutual friends, current pastors, and other various topics related to the church, and of course Frede threw in suggestions about lowering the price every time she could.

Unfortunately, there were no buses to Chachapoyas, so we caught a bus to Pedro Ruíz, 60 KM from our destination. We were relieved to be on our own again, but were not excited about the prospects of more violent movies. All the movies they show on the buses here are extremely violent, leaving you with a sickening feeling as you get out of the bus. During the eight hour bus ride, we had competitions to see who could NOT look at the TV. Each glance recieved one point, and the winner was the person with the fewest points. During the first movie, I won, with 4 glances (two of which were of the reflection in the window), Ansley came in second (6 glances), and Aaron lost horribly with 14 glances. John was and is somewhat sick, so he did not participate. The second movie went a little better, probably because we were either sleeping or listening to our iPods the whole time. Aaron and I got two glances, Ansley, zero. You´d be surprised how hard it is not to look when the volume is blaring down your neck. I tried to ignore the sounds of gun shots and punches by listening to The Horse and His Boy (thanks Alan).

After arriving in Pedro Luíz at 2AM, we waited two hours by the side of the road until a taxi finally agreed to take us to Chachapoyas. After about an hour and a half, the driver stopped the car, claiming we had to wait out the rain. After sitting there for an hour listening to our Taxi driver, rightly dubbed Moleface, snore, I got out and asked a Policeman what in the world was going on. He went over and talked to Moleface, and Moleface reluctantly helped us transfer our gear into another Taxi (that already had two people in it). This taxi then carried us the rest of the way to Chachapoyas, where we arrived at about 8AM this morning.