Fever and Chan Chan

I arrived at the hostel in Huanchaco, expecting to find Lucy and Zdenek already there, but they had actually stayed at another place the previous night, but two girls we had met in Sucre and then again in La Paz were there: Natasha and Sylvie. Lucy and Zdenek arrived later and we went out and got drunk. It seemed like a nice little town, with traditional fishing boats, which surf the waves, lined up along the beach. However it was still cold. I hadn't been able to believe how cold Lima was, after coming down from the mountains, but we were now even further north: eight degrees south of the equator, just coming into summer and it was still cold! Another thing I prefer Asia for: South America always seems to be cold!

Fishing boats

The next day I woke feeling really ill and assumed it was an unfairly disproportionate hangover, but by the time I had eaten breakfast it was clear that I had a bit of a fever as well: I just could not get warm, then in the evening, after spending the whole day in bed, I was burning up. Lucy and Zdenek were both feeling ill as well; yesterday's cebiche on the menu del dia was suspected. It put me off cebiche mixto a bit and I decided to switch to fish cebiche.

Lucy and Zdenek in Chan Chan

After spending the whole day in bed, I felt much better the next day; well enough to visit the Chan Chan ruins anyway, which was the one single thing to have persuaded me to follow Lucy and Zdenek here: I had found a website listing the “Best six” ruins in South America and Chan Chan was on it. Meanwhile Natasha had become ill with what sounded like the same as I'd had. The food in this town didn't seem to be up to the standards of the rest of the Peruvian coast thus far.

Statue in front of some carved walls

A very large "well" in Chan Chan

The walls are made of mud

Opening in a wall

The well

Cheating! Reconstruction with bricks and mortar!

What the good bit look like before reconstruction

Chan Chan was nice, though not as impressive as the website had led me to believe. It is huge, which makes it impressive, but it's also very ruined, because it's a whole city made of adobe, which after all is just mud. After I arrived in Huanchaco someone had told me that they were reconstructing it after a tsunami, so maybe that had happened after the website was written. Again, the reconstruction did seem a bit excessive, but without it, it would probably all just be a pile of mud, so what else can they do?

It goes on for miles

View from the top of a wall

Not sure if we were allowed up there

If we weren't allowed they shouldn't have left it

That evening I stuck to cooked fish, and had an excellent dish called chita a lo macho, which is a rather plain fish I don't know the English for covered in a mixed seafood sauce. Delicious and very filling. And the food at the slightly more expensive place seemed safely fresh and clean! The weather continued to be cold and cloudy. What's the point of a beach town when you have to wear winter clothes all the time?

Chita a lo Macho

written by

The Happy Couple on November 25, 2009 from Huanchaco, Peru

from the travel blog: Michael's Lonely post-Honeymoon

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If you´re still in Huanchaco, go find the little pastry shop down where gringo alley hits the beach and get yourself a giant slice of Pie de Limon.

I´m still contemplating 20 hours of buses to get back down there and stock up on more of that stuff.

written by

Jason Kester on November 29, 2009

Jason! Where have you been on your trip? What's happened to your blogs? Or did you never get a replacement laptop? Bad news there - I can't believe how much theft there is in South America!

written by

The Happy Couple on November 29, 2009

You could have at least kept your map up-to-date: there's this really cool feature called "map builder"...

written by

The Happy Couple on November 29, 2009

Wow, that thing is pretty cool!

You can now successfully track me all the way to Cuenca. Like a ghost, I´ll slip away just when you get here...

written by

Jason Kester on December 4, 2009

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