Our journey into Peru has begun!

 

 After travelling on a rocky night bus from Ecuador, we arrived safe and a little less sound to Piura, Peru.  Piura is a bustling city in the middle of the desert - the kind of place where exhaust mixes with dust and immediately sticks to your sweaty body.  Not only were we half awake, hungry and not exactly ready for the beauty pageant, we also didn't really have a plan for our first move in Peru (which meant we had T-40 min. until our peppy and usual optomistic attitudes went sour).   We had been waiting to hear back from a friend (John) who works in the Peace Corps in northern Peru, but alas - after several days and a couple of phone calls we didn't hear a thing so we had to make a decision.  The beach, the mountains, the jungle.... there are just too many options sometimes - but finally we landed on the decision to just head south for a few more hours and see how we felt after that.  About 15 minutes before departure we got the long awaited phone call from our friend John who happened to be in Chiclayo (a coastal town a couple of hours away), so luckily we were able to take the same bus and just get off two hours earlier.

Only in Peru

John was a great host for a couple of days in Chiclayo as we toured the markets and went to the beach with some of his fellow Peace Corps friends.  It was the perfect start to Peru as we were able to get a lot of information and hand-drawn maps from the group.  Although we didnt know exactly where we would be staying, we had a long list of what food we had to sample along the way. 

Chiclayo's large & crowded market included an entire section dedicated to the brujos (witch doctors), curanderos (healers), and shamans.  Here you could find tonics, teas, aromatic herbs, hallucinogenic cactus, amulats and much more.  All of the ancestral knowledge that Peruvian healers are known for has definitely peaked our interest.... but these sort of things will all come in good time, for now it was just interesting to see the plethora of things strung and tucked away in each tiny stall.

The Caballitos lined up to dry

      Along the coast in Chiclayo we were able to see hundreds of the hand made reed fishing boats called Caballitos de Totora (little reed horses).  This ancient technique of fishing has survived the test of time with only slight changes to the boat structure (a tiny bit of styrofoam is used in the stern for added buoyancy).  The fisherman ride atop their Caballitos like a horse and use a single board of bamboo for their paddle.  The fisherman often work in groups of two or three and use techniques such as gill nets and hand lines for jigging.  The catch is then brought in and given to the women (most often) where they descale and sell the fish of all sizes.

A fisherman brings in his catch at sunset