Trujillo has been the first town that we came to in Peru and we have been here almost a month now. It is a town full of life and relatively free of tourists where we have been able to relax and begin to learn Spanish. Erika´s Spanish has begun to soar as I drag myself along like a lame english donkey. Apparently patience is a virtue, and we do have plenty of time.

It is a city with a real sense of pride: whether it is the Cebiche they cook so beautifully, the colourful main square you can see above and below, the local marinera dance, or the insane driving we are witness to each day (minibus drivers with a glint in their eyes and no respect for anything other than the sound of their own horn – you have to be careful as you get in as they do not even wait for you get both feet off the ground and into the bus before they accelerate away in the race for the next stop). People here are just enthusiastic about life, whatever form it takes, except for customer service. Western ideals of how to treat customers are not common currency here. Actually it goes further than that: I am beginning to suspect that the Peruvians do not have a strong tradition of hospitality. Nothing is offered when you enter a house; even after three weeks of going to our Spanish teachers house for 3 hours of lessons every day and us taking drinks and biscuits that we share each day, never is anything offered in return.

Alot of our free time in Trujillo has been spent at a small town on the coast 20 minutes drive away. The photo below is of the fire station in Huanchaco. It is a town where life is lived at a different pace. The fire station actually looks like it has suffered a pretty severe fire itself. If these fireman were called out to an emergency, the fire would probably have burnt itself out before they would manage to move the car parked infront of the gates and get themselves organised enough to remember where the keys for the fire engine are!

The beach at Huanchaco is an enourmous scythe of sand cutting into the desert lanscape that encloses the town. Everything in the town is dominated by the sound of the enourmous waves that roll in from the pacific day after day. There are always surfers out in the bay and the local fisherman still use traditonal boats made from reeds that are capable of making it out safely through the surf. These boats are left to dry at the back of the beach as the fishermen repair their nets for the next day’s work.

Trouble writing? In peru you can use one of these guys sat at their little tables. tell him what you want to say and he will type it out for you. Indeed he can even transcribe it into official language for you. Brilliant- who needs a computer?

Lastly I wanted to speak about the appartment we have been staying in while we have been in Trujillo. It is on the roof of a hostel with a bedroom and a separate living/dining area and we use the family’s kitchen downstairs. The only downside revealed itself when we woke up to the sound of really loud rain. We didn’t think anything of it until we opened the door into the living room and found water everywhere. The roof had been made in such a way that rather than leading the rain to a gutter, it led it to the center of our living room and then dumped it on the floor. Twenty minutes later our appartment looked like the photo below.

One of the appartments saving graces is the large windows looking onto a beautifully kept park, complete with humming birds, and then over the rest of the city. The views of the tropical sunsets each night are fantastic.