..and onward towards the coast!

Right now I am sitting at an internet cafe in Chiclayo, on the coast of northern Peru. Dave and I have been here for a few days, taking in the big modern city, and going to the Museo Tumbas Reales de Sipan, one of the most amazing museums I have ever been to! This museum was erected to house the artifacts uncovered from one of the biggest and most complete archaelogical finds in history, the tomb of Sipan, the leader of the Mochica people who lived on the coast of northern Peru over 2000 years ago. The museum is shaped like a pyramid, and there are 3 levels...you start on the top level. Each level of the museum takes you deeper into the archaelogical excavation, it was created to make one feel as though they are an archaelogist, systematically uncovering the different layers of the tomb. The articfacts inside the museum were amazingly well preserved, and we saw thousands of artifacts in gold and silver, tons of expertly made pottery, and the bones of the great leader himself. This museum is rated to be one of the best museums in the world, and we agree! All of the exhibits were in Spanish, so we spent a good deal of time deciphering the text and writing down new vocab words in a notebook we brought with us.
Chiclayo also has a huge market, which was amazing to walk through. I really enjoy going to markets because everything is so fast paced and busy, its very entertaining to stop in your tracks and just watch the hundreds of things going on around you. There is inevatably someone carrying a large bin of freshly killed chickens and shouting ¨Permiso!¨while he meanders quickly through the crowd. There are people chopping fish, bartering over vegetables and hundreds of people just sitting quiety or sleeping at their stalls, selling everything from plastic dolls, to T-shirts to pornographic magazines to hammers and super glue. While all this is happening, there are about 20 people, shouting at you in spanish, waving at you to come to their food stall and try their fruit drinks, cerviche, or, in this specific case, a kid goat stew which is a specialty in Chiclayo.

Before we came to Chiclayo, we spent a few days in Cajamarca, another city about 7 hours northwest of where we are now. It is a gorgeous colonial city and we spent a few days seeing the sites with our Dutch friend Merluse, who we decided to join forces with after we parted ways with Emil. Our first day in town we went on another long hike through the countryside to get to some more ancient ruins. They were pretty hard to find, and we had to ask several farmers along the way for directions. Sometimes its difficult to trust their directions, however; we´ve discovered a trend in south america that people will give you directions even if they have to make them up. Apparently it is rude to say ¨no se¨(I don´t know), so they often tell us to take a right or a left, with no idea whatsoever about the correct directions. In this case, we actually got good directions and we stumbled upon a beautiful fortress where we explored, took some pictures and had a lunch of fresh Papaya and banannas.
We also took a very touristy tour to Porcon, a community about 35K outside of Cajamarca where a self-suffient evangelical Christian community lives. They have opened their community to visitors to show how they make their cheese and textiles from scratch and to take them on tours around the property. The tour turned out to be a walk around their zoo (we didn´t know they had a zoo)in the pouring rain, and the opportunity to buy some cheese if you want. We were a bit disapointed, but met a french and peruvian couple along the way who decided to ditch the tour with us and have tea. We talked in mixed Spanish, French and English and had a great discussion, until our tour guide found us and told us it was time to go. He wasn´t too happy about us disappearing from the tour because he had to come look for us, and then wait to finish our tea. Ooops.

Well, thats all for now folks, I must get back to check on Dave, who is currently napping in our hostel room after another bad bout of the stomach flu. It keeps sneaking up on us when we least expect it! Tomorrow, if he´s feeling better, we are headed to Huanchaco, a little surfing town on the coast where we will hopefully rent some boards and mess around in the sun and waves for a week or so.

Before I go, a few fun facts about day-today life in Peru:
-A lot of cities use ¨combis¨ a sort of van sized taxi, for cheap transportation. It is one guy´s job to drive and anothers sit next to the sliding door with his head hanging out the window yelling to passsers by the name of the location where the combi is headed. When someone flags the combi down, they slide open the door and the new passenger jumps in, usually while the van is still moving, and squishes (even if there is no sitting room) with the other passengers inside. Riding in one feels like being in an action movie.
-A lot of the time, when Dave and I are walking down the street, people will yell from 30 yards away ¨Hello! How are you!¨in thicky accented English. Over 3 children have come up to us to ask us the time (both in english and spanish), and when we give them a response in spanish, they will say the time in English, giggle, and run away. It seems as though people (especially the younger people) are really excited to practice their english. It can be embarrassing sometimes though, for example, when you walk by a crowd of 50 people who are watching a street performer and the street performer yells out ¨Hello! Welcome to Peru!¨and everyone turns and looks at you. (this actually happened) I´m convinced that I don´t stand out that much, but I guess the fact that Dave is 6 feet tall, blonde, and light skinned doesn´t help in our efforts to blend in.
-There is a talking parrot at our hostel who just says ¨hola¨ all day long and laughs at you when you walk past him. I don´t know why I find this so amusing, but I do.
-Shameless self promotion: My spanish is getting a lot better. I´m proud of myself.

stay in touch you all, and thanks for reading!
-the robin:)

The Museo Tumbas Reales de Sipan, rated one of the best in the world. This is the outside of the museum, we were not allowed to take our cameras inside!




A street vendor we met in Chiclayo, he sells beautiful silver and iron jewlery and little figurines that he makes out of twisted copper and iron.


Some pictures of the HUGE market in Chiclayo






Chiclayo is crazy with traffic and lots of street vendors!


Spontanious nightime parade in Cajamarca


woman with an alpaca in porcon


Crafts we saw on our tour of Porcon


there were also lots of animals in the zoo at porcon It was pretty terrible to watch them in their cages. This is the one picture we took, of the cock of the rock, a well known variety of amazonian bird. There were also bears and monkeys and lions, but no pictures of those. They looked too sad.


overlooking cajamarca


stretching at a bus stop. Merluse looking on.


we discovered more ruins!