End of trip wrap up

Well, that's it. One year and a whole lot of memories. We have been back in New Zealand for three weeks, but have been putting off our final post as it is hard to believe it is over. 

We saw two continents. We learnt (some) Spanish. Most importantly we met some amazing people on the road, and caught up with old friends and family.

We thought we would pull together some statistics and facts about the trip, in no particular order:

• Distance travelled: 29,000 miles or 47,000 km
• U.S. states visited: 28
• Countries visited: 16
• Gas tanks guzzled: 75
• Estimated fuel cost: $10,000
• Flat tires: 5
• Couches surfed: 14
• Bribes paid: 1
• Birthdays celebrated: 2
• Illnesses: 0 (excluding mild tummy bugs and hangovers)
• Mild tummy bugs: 3
• Fluency in Spanish gained: 5%

You may also be interested in how the van performed- here is a list of things we had to fix on the road:

• USA: new front tires
• Mexico: new alternator, fixed holes in radiator hoses, welded muffler back on
• Guatemala: replaced seals in rear axle
• Panama: repairs to air compressor
• Colombia: repaired drivers side power window
• Ecuador: new front brake pads, roof repainted
• Peru: four new tires, crown wheel and pinion replaced in rear differential (by far most expensive and time consuming repair)
• Argentina: bearings replaced in air compressor

Here are some lessons learned (don't be expecting anything deep and philosophical here):

• Mexico is not as dangerous as Americans claim
• Colombians are the nicest people in the world, but the worst drivers
• If you see something you need/want, buy it- you probably won't find it again
• If you have duct tape, WD40, and two-pot epoxy, you can fix anything
• Pretending not to speak spanish is the best way to handle dodgy road cops
• Probably best to invest more than in a week in spanish classes if you want to learn the language
• Our parents are amazing and very supportive (as if we didn't know that already)

Thanks for reading! We need to get back to planning our next trip....

Thirteen hours in Chile

After a quick two hour flight from Buenos Aires, we landed in Santiago, the capital of Chile, with thirteen hours to check out this lovely city before our flight to NZ. Ringed by snowy mountains, it's a beautiful city with plenty of character and old colonial buildings. 

We walked up Cerro Santa Lucia for a fantastic view of the mountains and the city. We visited the main plaza, and the presidential palace. We then spent a good few hours drinking beer, playing cards and eating wantons before our flight back to Aotearoa at midnight.

Uruguay, who would've thought.

We never planned to go to Uruguay, it was kind of a bonus track on our panamericangladiators greatest hits album. Indeed we had never really heard anything about Uruguay other than it was down there near Argentina/Brazil and presumably Paraguay.

We visited the beautiful colonial town of Colonia del Sacremento, an hours ferry ride west of Buenos Aires across the Rio Plato. We stayed in a hostel, which we are not used to. We were treated to an all you can eat asado, and bottomless jugs of wine, so it wasn't all bad. We even managed a little sightseeing between rain squalls.

We also had a rain soaked peak at Montevideo, the nation's capital. Torrey made a conscious tactical decision to leave his rain jacket in Argentina, and paid for it dearly. We think Montevideo was beautiful, but couldn't see much for the weather.

Finally, we spent two nights in Piriapolis at a fantastic apartment. We had huge views of the coast and a marina. We had a very nice day in the sun, before the perfect storm struck on our last night. We had rolling thunder and lightning for eight straight hours.

Olavarria

We visited Juan's parents Remo and Maby, and Juan's little brother Valentine, in Olavarria. We had a great weekend, eating asado, drinking mate, drinking wine, playing football, eating asado, playing Monopoly Deal, and eating asado.

We also met Bruno, Juan's cousin and a former exchange student of Ken and Debbie (who you may remember from our Canadaian blog post almost a year ago). Bruno and Juan stayed with Torrey's folks last year in NZ. Bruno showed us around his hometown of Sierras Bayas. 

With Juan and his parents

With heavy hearts, we had to say goodbye to the Gladiator. We have been trying to sell it for weeks now before we fly home to NZ, without much luck. Argentina has incredibly tough vehicle importation laws, which means that it is nearly impossible for an Argentinian to legally keep it in the country. So our target market was tourists, who would take it on a similar trip as ours, but it is the middle of winter here, and any smart tourist (with enough money to buy a sweet van) is not going to be starting a trip at this time of year. We finally found a good home for it, and a buyer who wasn't too interested in doing things by the book. We will miss the van and all the adventures we have had over the last year. It has served us very well, and we hope it will keep running strong for its new owner. It was pretty hard to say goodbye to such a wonderful traveling buddy.

Kellie closing the deal wearing her trademark bargaining slippers

Buenos Aires bumper edition blog post

We are but a few weeks out from the end of our trip now. We arrived in Buenos Aires to finally meet good family friend Juan. He lives with his brother Joaquin in a nice flat overlooking a pretty park in Recoleta, one of the nicest neighborhoods in BA. Our goal for the next week or two is to find someone to buy the van. We love the van and don't want to sell it, and this means that our trip is coming to an end, but it needs to be done so we don't have to sell it to a garage for spare parts. We ended up having a lot of time to look around BA while we got busy selling.

Recoleta is home to one of Buenos Aires' most famous points of interest, the enormous Recoleta Cemetery. This is the final resting place for many famous Argentinians: presidents, prominent businessmen, and even Argentina's most famous lady, Eva Peron.

The city center has many other points of interest. We visited the main plaza, home of the Casa Rosada or "Pink House". This is the presidential palace, where the President works but does not sleep apparently (except after occaisional big nights out clubbing presumably). There is a balcony over looking the plaza where Evita used to address her throngs of admirers. 

We took a one hour boat trip into the delta of the River Plate to visit Juan's friends Pablo and Andres. We stayed a night at their new bed and breakfast venture, which will be opening soon. They took excellent care of us, feeding us lots of asado and wine, and teaching us new card games.

We also celebrated Kellie's 29th birthday. Torrey had an extra special day planned involving banana pancakes, flowers, a theme park, a large pyrotechnics display, pisco sours, a small party and a cake (which he only remembered at 11.56pm). Kellie was taught the traditional Argentinian way to eat a birthday cake, which is to put three fingers inside it first and make three wishes.

Thanks for reading...here is a bonus tango video!

Argentinians are wonderful... and weird

For some reason, the region of Cordoba has a collection of very weird towns.

In the town of Nono, there is a very weird museum called "Museo Rocsen". If you are interested in any or all of the following: geodes, fetuses in jars, taxidermy, old stamps, cameras, printing equipment, shrunken heads, horse drawn carts, religious art, old soda cans, medieval weaponry, ancient agricultural equipment, lampshades, and disassembled engines...Rocsen could well be your happy place.

The museum building itself is impressive- the front facade is a pantheon of life-size statues dedicated to people with ideas that changed history. Aristotle, Hippocrates, Jesus? Sure, no brainers. It was intesting to see the likes of Chief Seattle, Rachel Carson, and JS Bach included with these giants of history. I suppose if you own a museum you can put whoever you like up there!

Alta Gracia is a town south of Cordoba, famous for being the place where Ernesto Guevara lived between the ages of 5 and 16. The house where he lived for a portion of this time is now a museum. We weren't expecting much, but it turned out to be very worthwhile. There are interesting exhibits on the stages of his childhood and adolescence (including replicas of the bicycle and motorcycle that he took around Central and South America), a small theater that shows interviews with people he grew up with, and even a bit of dirt and rocks from the room in Bolivia where he was killed.

A bit further south, we checked out the town Villa General Belgrano (named after the creator of the Argentinian flag), a small German-style village that was founded by two Germans in 1930 and later inhabited by German seaman whose boat sunk off the Argentinian coast. You can buy German-language newspapers, drink German-style beer, and eat German food. It was pretty weird, but a nice little town to have a wander.

Jesuits and the Falkland Islands

Two unconnected subjects as far as I know, but we both find them interesting topics and couldn't figure out where else to blog about them.

The region of Cordoba is full of old Jesuit missions. If you are from a secular country like New Zealand, you may not have heard of these guys. Here is a quick recap from google on who they are:

The Society of Jesus is a male religious congregation of the Catholic Church. The members are called Jesuits. The society is engaged in evangelization and apostolic ministry around the world. Jesuits work in education (founding schools, colleges, universities and seminaries), intellectual research, and cultural pursuits. Jesuits also give retreats, minister in hospitals and parishes, and promote social justice and ecumenical dialogue

The Jesuits set up missions all over South America, spreading their religion and doing what they saw as necessary to help out local indigenous communities. They also made an effort to learn local languages and customs, and encourage locals to hang on to them in the face of colonisation. The Spanish eventually had enough of the Jesuits, as they were helping the poor too much, and had too much power among the masses. The Spanish authorities put an end to their activities, forcing them to abandon their missions. 

We visited one mission in the town of Jesus Maria. It is a beautiful building and grounds. There is a stash of wine making equipment out back as well, it turns out the Jesuits were prolific wine makers, using profits to fund their activities. 

Another topic that comes up often in Argentina is the politics surrounding the Falkland or Malvinas Islands. Again, if you are like us you may not know too much about this topic, so here is google again:

The Falklands War (Guerra de las Malvinas), was a ten-week war between Argentina and the United Kingdom over two British overseas territories in the South Atlantic: the Falkland Islands and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. It began on Friday, 2 April 1982, when Argentina invaded and occupied the Falkland Islands in an attempt to establish the sovereignty it had long claimed over them. On 5 April, the British government dispatched a naval task force to engage the Argentine Navy and Air Force before making an amphibious assault on the islands. The conflict lasted 74 days and ended with the Argentine surrender on 14 June 1982, returning the islands to British control. In total, 649 Argentine military personnel, 255 British military personnel, and three Falkland Islanders died during the hostilities.

The conflict was a major episode in the protracted confrontation over the territories' sovereignty. Argentina asserted (and maintains to this day) that the islands are Argentinian territory, and the Argentine government thus characterised its military action as the reclamation of its own territory. The British government regarded the action as an invasion of a territory that had been a Crown colony since 1841. Falkland Islanders, who have inhabited the islands since the early 19th century, are predominantly descendants of British settlers, and favour British sovereignty.

In Argentina, it is hard to ignore the issue with graffiti, art work, road signs and currency remembering the conflict, and often declaring the Falklands/Malvinas are Argentinian. We have also been trapped in a number of conversations with Argentinians who want to know what we think about the conflict, and who should own them. Short answer? We don't really have an opinion either way.

The long drive across Argentina

El Parque Nacional Sierra de las Quijadas was a very pleasant surprise. On the long drive from Mendoza to Cordoba, we spent a night at the park. We were not expecting such spectacular scenery or such an abundance of critters. The park has all kinds of landforms in different shades of red, orange and yellow. We saw foxes and massive hares all over the place, and we even saw an armadillo. We spent the night camping in the park and were treated to a fantastic sunset and very clear skies for stargazing. Anyway, our camp spot was pretty much decided for us after the number of malbec "sundowners" Torrey drank.

Every few kilometres on Argentina's roads there is some shrine or another for motorists to stop and ask for something of a popular saint. Most of these are unofficial saints, i.e. not recognized by the Catholic church.

The most common shrine is one dedicated to "Gauchito Gil". These are usually located in algarrobo trees, with red flags and ribbons hanging off the branches and small red housings for candles and assorted Gauchito Gil paraphernalia.

Gauchito Gil is a legendary folk hero dating back to the 1800s. He was a "Gaucho", or cowboy, who fought in a war against Paraguay, but refused to take part in a subsequent civil war. He became an outlaw, hunted by the authorities as a deserter. He basically became an Argentinian Robin Hood, until his capture by a local policeman. He was tortured, and hung by his feet in an algarrobo tree.

When the head policeman was about to kill him, Gauchito Gil said to him: "You can kill me, but you will arrive home tonight at the same time as a letter of my pardon. The letter also says your son is dying of a strange illness. If you pray and beg me to save your child, I promise you that he will live. If not, he will die". The head policeman, ignoring his words, killed Gauchito Gil by slitting his throat.

When the head policeman came back to his village, he returned to find that his son was very ill and at the brink of dying. Frightened, the policeman prayed to Gauchito Gil for his son to be saved. The next day, his son was found to be inexplicably cured, and legend has it that Gauchito Gil had healed his murderer's son. Very grateful, the policeman gave Gil's body a proper burial and built a tiny shrine for the Gauchito in his honor.

A few roadside shrines dedicated to Gauchito Gil

Another common roadside shrine is dedicated to "Difunta Correa". These shrines are characterised by huge mounds of bottles filled with water. 

According to popular legend, Deolinda Correa was a woman whose husband was forcibly recruited around the year 1840, during the Argentine civil wars. Becoming sick, he was then abandoned by his fellow troops. In an attempt to reach her sick husband, Deolinda took her baby and followed the tracks of the troops through the desert of San Juan Province. When her supplies ran out, she died. Her body was found days later by gauchos who were driving cattle through, and to their astonishment found the baby still alive, feeding from the deceased woman's "miraculously" ever-full breast. Her followers believe that the survival of her baby was her first miracle, and that she continues to perform miracles for those who ask.

A few shrines of water bottles as offerings to Difunta (deceased) Correa

Who is the fifth biggest wine producer in the world, you ask?

....well it is Argentina according to google. We are both big fans of Argentinian malbecs. It was therefore with great pleasure that we embarked on a self-guided tour of the Maipu section of the Cuyo wine region.

We stopped by Trapiche, one of the bigger names in Argentinian wines, and the country's largest exporter. It was the slickest tour by far, with videos and demonstrative machinery. One in ten bottles exported from Argentina is from Trapiche, so that's why there is always a good selection at Chaffers New World in Wellington.

We also visited Mevi and Carinae. Both were more boutique than Trapiche, but had similar selections of malbecs and torrontes, of course. Mevi had a really nice deck to catch the sun, and reasonable food options. Perfect spot to end a wine tour. We will have to return next time with a crew and rent bikes.

We finished the day at a craft beer brewery, because why not? A group of tourists were there having finished up a bike tour of the vineyards. The police came and told them to clear out as the sun started to get low, as apparently Maipu gets a little bit stabby after dark.

We stayed at a nearby campground that got pretty cold at night. We had to spend a while scraping the ice off the windscreen before we could get going in the morning. There was even ice inside the windshield.

The biggest mountain in the Andes

We have spent the last week in Mendoza. Second biggest city in Argentina and heart of the country's wine industry. We spent a few days trying to change money through various semi-legal avenues. We also got another mysterious noise fixed in the Gladiator. She is now running like a dream again.

We caught up with our mate Kalem from Wellington. He is also driving the Americas with his partner in crime Elise. Although they have been on roughly the same path as us over the last year, this is the first we have seen them on the road.

Dinner in Mendoza with Kalem and Elise (left), and new friends Seba and Ellie (right)

We visited the Andes west of Mendoza, and stayed in the pretty mountain town of Uspallata. It's where Seven Years in Tibet was filmed, a Brad Pitt epic that neither of us have seen (it's probably a pretty average film anyway but we may watch it now that we have been there).

We stayed there for a few days in order to check out Aconcagua, the biggest mountain in the Western and Southern Hemispheres (6962m or 22,837ft high). It is situated right off the main border crossing between Argentina and Chile, and pretty close to Santiago as the crow flies. Unfortunately it was white-out conditions when we visited and we couldn't see the mountain. We did see the Puente del Inca, an unusual natural land bridge over thermal springs with lots of minerals, hence the yellow and orange colors. It was absolutely freezing there (literally- it was snowing), so we didn't stay long.

Speaking of Chile and Argentina, we caught the final of the "Copa Americas" while in Uspallata. It's a four yearly soccer/football competition between nearly all south american countries with a few central/northern american countries usually invited. Argentina and Chile made the final, a big deal down here as the two countries are big rivals (like New Zealand and Australia, except more intense due to past/present political conflicts). Chile beat Argentina in a penalty shoot out. This was their first competition win, beating a decent Argentinian outfit led by superstar Lionel Messi. The Argentinians watching the game with us at the pub were pretty bummed, though I'm sure that in Chile it was celebratory pandemonium.

Northern Argentina

Argentina. Fifteenth and final country of the trip (unless we make a cheeky trip to Uruguay). Things are getting much colder as we head down towards 30-35° in southern latitude. Our northern hemisphere readers should note it is the depths of winter down here. We spent our first week in Argentina on the historic highway 40, Argentina's route 66, down the dry eastern flank of the Andes.

Argentina is well set up for the driving traveller. There are lots of campgrounds everywhere- usually for about five bucks we get power, a bbq pit, hot showers, and sometimes wifi. Freecamping is easy and safe almost anywhere. The roads are also in good condition. And last but not least...a good malbec starts at about $1.50 a bottle!

Communing with the locals at a standard municipal campground. We have become dog magnets in Argentina, and we aren't complaining.

We headed first to Salta, a fairly big city in the north. We had our first experience exchanging cash on the "blue market". The official exchange rate is nine pesos to a US dollar if you use an ATM or exchange money at a bank. However, you can get 13 pesos to the dollar if you exchange US bills on a street corner. I am unsure of the economics of Argentina's blue market, but it has something to do with the super high inflation and the relatively stable US currency which Argentinians like to stash away for savings. At any rate, if you ever come to Argentina, bring stacks of US cash to trade and make a profit.

In Salta we mostly did chores- including taking Kellie's fingerprints in a cafe so that she could apply for a background check, needed for her NZ work visa

Counting our cash after a trip to exchange money with the 'cambio' guys

We drove through the Quebrada de Cafayate, a really amazing drive through a large valley/canyon. There are landforms with names such as the "castle", the "devil's throat" and the "amphitheatre". Everywhere you look is stunning, and you can't take a bad picture on this whole route.

We headed to Cafayate, a beautiful little wine growing town. We only stayed a night, though we should have stayed much longer. We had an excellent dinner at "La Casa de Empanadas"- empanadas are an Argentinian favourite, and come stuffed with all sorts of fillings. We had a few cheap clay jugs of local wine to wash them down.

We stopped in at the Quilmes archeological site, reportedly one of the best in the country. It is a well preserved city fortress in the desert. The people who lived there flew under the radar of the Incas but not the Spanish, who rounded them up and sent them to Buenos Aires.

The race through northern Chile

Due to what was later discovered to be a totally unnecessary need to race to Argentina for visa purposes, we had only one day in northern Chile. The landscape of northern Chile is much like Peru, very dry and barren. In fact, it is home to the driest place on earth, the Atacama desert. Some parts of the desert have not had rainfall for over 50 years!

It is a beautiful place to visit. There are some unusual, otherworldly landscapes. There are also very clear skies at night for stargazing. Despite the lack of water and vegetation, we saw many llamas, and at higher altitudes, their wild cousins called vicunas.

The drive from San Pedro de Atacama over the Andes and into Argentina must rate as one of the world's best drives. It is mindblowingly stunning. Luckily for us there was not too much snow, and the border crossing was open. Here the Gladiator had its first real customs search. The border patrol unscrewed a bunch of the interior panels, and they even inserted a special camera to check the roof cavity. We were a bit worried that Tom may have had a stash in there he had forgotten about.

We also saw our first salt flats of the trip, including the huge Salinas de Jujuy. Due to the aforementioned "wild visa goose chase" we unfortunately missed the famous salt flats of Uyuni, and the country surrounding them (Bolivia). Seeing some big salt flats ameliorated this somewhat.

Southern Peru

The entire Pacific coast of Peru is a dry and barren desert. You can drive for days without seeing much greenery. However, every now and then there is an oasis.

The Reserva Lomas de Lachay is a peculiar little ecosystem that gets its water from coastal fog. It was fairly dry during our visit, but from July to October it transforms into a lush green little forest in the middle of the desert.

Another oasis we visited was Huacachina. This is more of your classic "Lawrence of Arabia" oasis. Huge sand dunes, palm trees, a small lake. It is also popular amongst local and foreign tourists alike for sandboarding. Noisy dune buggies shuttle people up the dunes with their boards. We didn't have a go as it looked pretty lame, but everyone seemed to be having fun.

A highlight of southern Peru is the famous Nazca lines. They cover 500 square kilometeres, and there are over 300 geometric figures, some 70 animal and plant figures, and over 800 perfectly straight lines. They were created by dark rocks being removed to reveal lighter gypsum soil underneath. They are so big that the only way to really appreciate them is by aeroplane. They were discovered in 1939 during a research flight on ancient irrigation. Some of them are so big and the proportions so accurate that researchers suspect that complicated mathematics were involved. Who created them and why remains a mystery. Here are a few aerial photos from google:

We stopped by a tower built by the side of the road where you can view "the hands" and "the tree" from an oblique viewpoint. They are pretty impressive.

We also visited the well preserved colonial town of Arequipa before heading to the border. We had a classic last Peruvian dinner of cuy (guinea pig), and ricotta relleno (large pepper stuffed with ground alpaca and baked).

Nobody expects the Spanish inquisition!

Well we ended up spending a bit more time in Lima than planned while the van got some new tires and other repairs. From our first impression of a sprawling, crowded metropolis, we found that Lima definitely has its charms.

Luckily our friend Pino lives in Lima. He took us out for some typical Peruvian food, local craft beers, and pisco sours (pisco is a grape brandy, and pisco sours are basically Peruvian margaritas). He also took us down to stay at his beach house at the famous surf beach Punta Hermosa.

We free camped at a park near Pino's place. The Presidente's inlaws live nearby, so there are a lot of cops around to ensure the safety of any wily free campers. This was a good spot to explore the city including the upmarket seaside suburbs of Miraflores and Barranco.

We also spent a day checking out the city centre. Lima was the most important city in colonial South America. It was the home of the viceroy, and the huge palaces, cathedrals and hotels are still here.

There is a beautiful Franciscan monastery with enormous subterranean catacombs. The building has been kept in good shape despite several earthquakes. We particulary liked the library and choir stalls built out of central american cedar (pictures are not allowed, but Kellie managed to sneak a few of the catacombs). There is also a museum at the original site of the Spanish Inquisition headquarters. Both of these sites were pretty gruesome, but a fascinating look into how the Spanish masters treated their living, and their dead.

The catacombs below San Francisco Monastery. Home to 30,000 odd skeletons. Above is a Googled image of the library - 400 year old books!

The Inquisition museum, a very vivid recreation of what these nasty bastards got up to in the name of religion.

Serious mountains

The Cordilleras are the second highest mountain range on earth after the Himalayas. There are 50 peaks over 5700m (the whole of North America only has three). The area is stunning, with countless glaciers and alpine lakes. 

Remember that time our smart phone maps casually led us into the 
very rough and rugged Canon del Pato? I do.

In the town of Caraz we saw children making these elaborate Jesus sawdust murals on a Sunday morning.

We stayed in Parque Nacional Huascaran for a couple nights. Mount Huascaran is the highest peak in Peru at 6700m. The campsites are at well over 4000m, but below the snow line which is at around 5000m. This altitude makes for thin air and gaspy breathing.

Sadly, an earthquake struck this area in 1970 and killed over 80,000 people. The town of Yungay, on the side of Huascaran, was completely buried killing all 20,000 inhabitants. There was not much left except for the spire of the cathedral poking out of the rubble. The town of Yungay was rebuilt 2km away, and we hope it never suffers the fate of its predecessor.

The Gladiator had a few tricks up its sleeve for our trip through the mountains. After seven months of not so much as a flat tire, we had four of them in three days. Two struck at once forcing us to taxi to the next town and get them patched. The van now has four brand new tires. Those mountain roads were pretty rough for the ole Gladiator, but nothing is gonna stop us now.

The road to Chavin...windy and epic

Windy and epic roads lead to four flats in three days. Time for new tires.

We also visited the archeological site of Chavin de Huantar. This ancient city was built in 1200 BC and was a centre of power and religion. There are extensive tunnels to check out. Apparently the priests used to dose citizens up on hallucinogenic san pedro cactus juice and send them into the tunnels. Inside they had highly polished rocks and elaborate water canals set up to reflect light and noise and disorient these people. People came out even stronger believers in whichever gods the priests wanted them to believe in.

The land of surf and ceviche

We had an easy border crossing from Ecuador into Peru. However, we experienced our first taste of Peruvian corruption on that first day in Peru. The border guards seized a box of our ready-meal quinoa for their lunch! (Torrey was actually pretty happy about this as he doesn't like the ready-meal quinoa).

Peru has a huge coastline, which means lots of olas y mariscos (waves and seafood). Puerto Chicama is world famous for its veeeeeery long left hand break. If the swell is pumping from the right direction, you can ride a wave for over 2km down the coast! It wasn't breaking that well when we were there, but it was still a long and fun wave.

Puerto Chicama- capital of the longest, perfect left wave in the world

The nearby town of Chiclayo is the home of some of the best ceviche we have had. We have had a lot of ceviche on the trip, but this was by far the best.

Ceviche served on boiled yucca, with corn and cancha (a kind of toasted corn). Yummmmm

We also checked out the surf town of Huanchaco. The waves were big and fat. Freecamping is possible on the beach here, but not worth the aggravation of security guards knocking on your window and asking for propinas (tips)- if we wanted to pay we would have gone to a hostal amigos!

We visited two ruins in the area, Tucume and Chan Chan. These were both enormous civilisations, older even than the Incas. The cities were made of adobe (mud) so they haven't aged as well as other pre-Columbian cities we have been to. It's still possible to get your head around the scale of the cities, and learn something of the fascinating history of these people.

Capital of the Chimu culture, Chan Chan was the largest pre-Columbian city in South America

Tucume covers an area of 540 acres and contains at least 26 important pyramids. The founders of the city believed that the outlying hills held important powers, and by building pyramids that replicated those hills, they could harness that power