Trujillo – ruins of Chan Chan and New Years

Huaca Arco Iris

After the bus through the desert all day, I was concerned by what I was going to find in Trujillo. In Trujillo, I found a surprisingly nice town. The city was laid out fairly well with decent infrastructure. People were out in the evening (a sign of reasonable security). I stayed near the Plaza de las Armas, the historic center. I felt comfortable the entire time I was in Trujillo.

The Plaza de Armas in Trujillo During the Christmas Season

The only thing I knew about Trujillo is that they had a UNESCO heritage site Chan Chan; ruins of a pre-Incan civilization. Also another surfing beach, Huanchaco, was nearby. So these were my only two certain goals for my time in Trujillo. On my way to breakfast, the tourist office in the hotel told me they had a tour going to Huacas del Sol y Luna (Temple of the Sun and Moon), Museo del Moche, Huaca Arco Iris, Chan Chan and a short visit to Huanchaco; all for US$7 since they already had 5 others going.

Huacas del Sol y Luna and the Museo del Moche were situated together on the south east side of Trujillo. Huacas del Sol y Luna were built by the Moche, a pre-Incan civilization that lasted from approximately 100 AD to 700 AD. The Huacas were temples made of adobe (bricks made of a mix of mud, sand, and shells). They were built over a period of several hundred years. They started with one level and over time built up five levels. They had carved scenes which depicted a religion of ritualistic sacrifice. The theory is that warriors would battle each other. The losing warrior would not be killed, but would be given a drug of mescaline made from a local cactus. The shaman would then drain the blood of the losing warrior while they were still living and present the blood as offerings to their gods.

These mud bricks have lasted more than 1000 years.

Ritualistic chamber where the sacrafices took place

Sheltered excavation underway

Original ink

Looking towards Huaca del Sol. Between the Huacas lay a city

Plaza at Huaca de la Luna, probably where winners and losers of battles were presented.

Huaca Arco Iris was an early Chimu temple most likely built around 800 A.D. It is named for the unique drawings found in the temple. There is some original as well as restored ruins here.

Huaca Arco Iris named for these drawings

Chan Chan is an expansive area of ruins covering located on the northwest side of Trujillo. It was the largest pre-Colombian city in South America. It is located close to the ocean as you can hear the surf from the archeological grounds.  Chan Chan was the capital of the Chimu civilization which lasted from 850 AD to 1470 AD. The Chimu were post Moche and pre Inca. The Incas conquered Chan Chan after an eight year siege to mark the end of the Chimu.

Main plaza area in Chan Chan - used for public events

Entrance to main plaza area

Living quarters

Living quarters

One of the many irrigation pools in Chan Chan. Water has recently returned due to irrigation projects

Burial chamber. This leader was buried with 40 of his concubines

Huanchaco is a surfing beach near Trujillo. We had a short visit as part of the tour. It looked like a nice beach. The waves looked pretty good, but the water was cold. I noticed that all the surfers were out in wet suits. Surfing in a wetsuit does not look fun to me.

Huanchaco Beach

Monster Pelicans

For New Year celebration, I met up with a group of couch surfers; a group from Spain, Germany, Sweden and Peru. We had dinner and then at midnight fireworks. Fireworks are different here than they are in the U.S. In the U.S., there are big fireworks displays set off by cities. In Peru, it’s a free for all. The neighborhood literally looked like a war zone. I wondered how many homes burnt from the mayhem.

We then went to Huanchaco, which looked to be an all-night party. I enjoyed my time there, but left at a reasonable hour as I was planning to leave for the Cordillera Blanca (the White Mountains) the next day.

Christmas in Mancora and a Bus Ride through Northern Peru

The Beach at Mancora

I arrived in Peru via night bus from Cuenca to Mancora. I chose to take the bus for two reasons.  I had heard from reading blogs that the roads were sometimes difficult south of Cuenca. My bike is not meant to ride on rough road. Also, I had heard there have been robberies of bikes in northern Peru. Not sure if these are recent or a while ago, but given both reasons, I decided not to risk it.

Mancora is a small surf beach town in the very north of Peru. There is not much in Mancora besides beach, bars and hostels. The primary activities are surfing, paddle boarding and kite surfing if the conditions are right. The day I arrived the conditions looked excellent for all three. Unfortunately, I was tired from the bus ride, so I decided to rest. The conditions were not as good for the remaining days I was there. The surf remained good, but as people poured in for the holidays, the break became very crowded. The wind caused a choppiness that would have made it difficult for paddle board; but was not consistent enough for kite surfing. I decided just to wait until reached other beaches. I think this was a mistake though. The water was still warm in Mancora. At other beaches towards the south, surfers needed wet suits (not for me).

I spent Christmas at the hostel in Mancora. I shared Christmas dinner with a mixed group of travelers from US, Germany, Quebec, Colombia, Argentina and Switzerland; good times.

I continued south by bus from Mancora to Trujillo. The risk of robbery was part of the reason, but possibly more important was the distance between towns. There are large stretches of desert. Between Mancora and Trujillo, there are two main towns (Piura and Chiclayo). This was an eight hour bus ride. Besides these towns, you do not see much besides desert. Riding across that much desert is just not worth the risk in my opinion.

Some pictures of the desert in northern Peru:

Occasionally, there would be irrigated oases.

One of the few structures between towns

Cuenca and Parque Nacional Cajas

The New Cathedral and Main Square

I arrived in Cuenca from Macas by bus. The distance between towns and passing back over the Andes made continuing this direction by bicycle appear quite difficult.

Cuenca

Once in Cuenca, the first thing I did was jump on a tour bus to get familiar with the city. Cuenca from an infrastructure standpoint seems to be one of the nicer cities in Ecuador. The roads and sidewalks are good. Buildings seemed to be well maintained. The architecture seems to be a mix of colonial along with up-to-date standards based buildings. It seems quite safe (although so does most of Ecuador). There is a nice selection of restaurants. The weather is moderately warm and from what I understand very consistent throughout the year.

If I had one word to describe Cuenca, it would be comfortable. Apparently, a number of ex-pats would agree as Cuenca is a top destination for retirees. I can completely understand this. A retiree with limited language skills could move here and lead a comfortable life while spending quite reasonably. I myself could see spending more time here.

Cuenca Main Square

Overlooking Cuenca

New Cathedral at Night

A Local Government Building

 Parque Nacional Cajas

View from Main Hiking Entrance to Parque Nacional Cajas

Cajas is the number 1 recommendation on trip advisor. Even so, I was not convinced I wanted to visit Cajas as I have been to a number of other paramo locations in the upper Andes already. However, I started talking to a few people where I was staying about options for what to do in Cuenca and pretty soon we had a group going to Cajas.

It was easy to get to Cajas; just grab a bus from the bus terminal to Cajas directly or to Guayaquil and get off at the Cajas stop. It is about 1 hour from Cuenca.

Cajas has a number of hiking options ranging from 2 to 3 hour hikes to multi day hikes. We chose a 4 hour hike that took us about 3 hours. The hiking trails sit at about 4,000 meters or 13,000 feet in altitude, so thin air can be an issue.

Puyo to Macas: No Amazon Tour for Me

Rio Pastaza at mid-point between Puyo and Macas from seldom used mini-resort. Rio Pastaza empties into the Amazon.

As I was leaving Baños, the scenery began to change. Baños has a cool dry wind. As I approached Puyo, the wind seemed to gain warmth and moisture. There were a lot more broad-leaf tropical plants. I stayed the night in Puyo. I had intended to reach a small town outside Puyo called Veracruz where there is a nice hosteria, but I was not sure I would arrive before sundown.

No Tour for Me

I had hoped to do a jungle tour. How often am I in the Amazon? I found a place on-line which seemed like a good possibility. It was midway between Puyo and Macas, which was good as I was not sure I could do the entire distance to Macas (130km) in one day. According to the web site, they offered a number of different tours; from caving to jungle tours.

As I rode, I realized it would be very difficult for me to make it the entire distance. The road between Puyo and Macas is all hills. They are small hills with low grade inclines, but hills nonetheless. When I arrived at the midway point, however, I found the place to be somewhat rundown. Apparently, it is too far off the beaten path to get the visitors to keep it well maintained.

There was no one there. I just happened to talk to the grounds keeper on the way to the lodge as he was working at a nearby farm. He showed me to a musty room, swept the room as it was pretty dusty and got me bed clothes. It is pretty weird being the only person in a rundown mini-resort.

The place has a lot of potential. I can see why the owners tried to do what they did. The resort sits at a juncture between two rivers. It has pools that are fed from one of the rivers, so there is constantly fresh water. There are lots of birds. It is surrounded by jungle scenery. I do not think there are any other hotels in the area. There just aren't people here.

Pond with fish. It has a balance rope thing that you can walk across. I think it would be good training for slacklining.

Empty bar area, I presume

River fed pools with some changing rooms.

Rio Pastaza from the resort.

Continuing on to Macas

I continued the next morning on to Macas. I was glad I stayed at the rundown resort as I certainly would have had difficulty making the distance. The part from Rio Pastaza to Macas was the same with low hills, but more of an uphill than downhill. Additionally there were virtually no other places to stay until I got pretty close to Macas.

Once in Macas, I found a cheap, but pretty nice hotel not too far from the bus station. I decided I would check in Macas to see if I could find any jungle tours. I walked around and talked to a few tour operators. It seemed it would be a bigger deal than I thought to get to the jungle areas. Since getting back across the Andes would not be so easy without backtracking, I decided to catch the bus the next day to Cuenca.

I am not certain this was the wisest decision. How often do I get this close to the Amazon? I have to balance that with the thought, "I cannot climb every mountain."

Baños and the Route to the Amazon

Overlooking Baños

Baños is a town that sits in a valley that cuts Andes on an East/West route. The town itself is a nice town catering to tourists; a comfortable town. It has a number of shops, a good selection of restaurants, lots of hotels for a very reasonable price. It sits beneath the Tungurahua volcano, which is active; but unfortunately, has not displayed an eruption since June of 2014. I was hoping to see one, as I have never seen an eruption before.

View of Tungurahua from my hike

 There are a number of things to do in Baños. Some of the other items that are available: hiking, mountain climbing, white water rafting, ziplining, biking and jungle tours.

I hiked from the town to a spot called the Tree House and then back down. This was a pretty difficult hike as it has you going straight up the mountain. I actually think it might have been more difficult to climb down the way I went up as it was pretty steep at times. I very much enjoyed it. The Tree House has a very good view of Tungurahua. I saw smoke, but no lava. I walked/ran down the road from there, which was a pretty long ways. I would guess about 7km to the small commercial area that overlooks Baños. There, I ate at Cafe del Cielo, which I would recommend to anyone going to Baños. I then hiked the rest of the way down from there.

Cow Chilling at the Tree House

This hike took most of the day, but afterwards I was ready to partake in one of the thermal baths that are the namesake for Baños. These baths are fed from waters coming from a mix of the waterfalls coming from the mountain and volcanically heated waters from underground. The baths have a number of different pools with varying degrees of heat from very cold to so hot that it is difficult to get in. I started with the very hot one, but then moved to the middle grade one. At first it felt too cold, since I had started with the very hot one; but after a bit, it felt pretty good.

One of the offerings in Baños is biking through the Avenue of the Waterfalls. The Avenue of the Waterfalls is also the route to Amazon region. Most tourists rent a bike in Baños and then ride to largest waterfall, El Paillon del Diablo, then ride a bus back to Baños. I was heading to the Amazon, so I did the waterfall route. From a biking stand point, it was a very nice ride.

Waterfall with zipline across gorge

Vertical of same waterfall above

When the road goes through tunnels, this is the bike route

Another waterfall

Looking down the valley

Watefall El Paillon del Diablo

Water flowing from El Paillon del Diablo

A view towards the Amazon

Baños was nice. It would not be a reason for me to travel to Ecuador. If I were already here or was planning to visit Ecuador, I might make it one of my stops. I could see myself coming back here some day.