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I am proud to say we chose the cuarto without the cockroaches and dirt. It did seem like a fun place, but we can always visit for a beer than retreat to our santuary. We have our own room with a table next to a window overlooking a courtyard of plants. We have a bathroom attached to the room that has a TUB as well as a hot water faucet. Amazing! I must take a bath soon. Plus the room is so much warmer, being on the second floor with windows that close. No dogs on the roof and only one day this week was there construction at 7am…but it was next door, not outside our room. We have access to a lovely roof with a clothesline and views of the ocean. We are sharing the kitchen with the owner and her 20 year old daughter. They are quiet, nice and don’t bug us all the time like Wilma did. (And it’s only 30 cents more a day than Wilma’s!) Plus, in the house there are 3 other sets of couples and a solo computer programmer guy (It’s a big place, but somehow less noisy than where we were). All in all, we are much healthier, happier, warmer and less stressed. We also live next to the best market in town, El Hornito. So any late night cravings for plantain chips can be satisfied. We’re still one block from the beach, but my walk to work is about 15 minutes now.

We have been busy with our volunteer work as well as making time for adventures. This past weekend we visited the Huaca del Sol (y la Luna), which are Moche temples built at the base of a rocky mountain (Cerro Blanco). The Moche people lived from 200 BC to 850 ad and are known for their ceramics, textiles and metalwork. Gold here isn’t found in nuggets, it’s in pieces like mica. So they would just build a big fire and extract the metal out and make impressive breastplates and other accessories out of it.

I’m impressed how advanced they were with the buildings and artwork and how they lived in an organized community with a strong religion. The Huaca del Sol is the largest single pre-Columbian structure in Peru, but about a third of it has been washed away from wind and rain (mud houses DO need some upkeep). It looks like a rough pyramid and it was made completely of mud bricks (estimated 140 million bricks for one pyramid). The thing that amazed me the most visiting the Huaca is that about every 100 years, the Moche people would fill up the current temple with bricks and build a new temple on top of it. The Huaca del Sol has 5 layers, which means 5 temples built upon each other. So all of the previous temples are beautifully preserved because they were covered with bricks. The top of the 5th and final temple was washed away, so we couldn’t really see much of the top of the pyramid. The tour was really interesting because the archaeologists can’t fully expose a previous layer without destroying the current layer. There was one part in the tour where we walked through a giant crack in the North wall, the only designed entrance to the temple, and you can see in the bricks the colors painted on the previous walls. They exposed the layers of the main wall in a way you can see all 5 buildings with their individual carvings and designs. It was beautiful (and scary).
Most of the friezes were of their angry saber-toothed god, Ayapec, and a few of decapitations, naked slaves and shiny happy people holding hands. From the upper level, we could see the ruins of the walls of the village were the common people lived, and the Huaca de la Luna, which still looks like a pyramid and is not open to the public yet. Archaeologists are still slowly digging away, which means there will always be more to see in the future. I think it’s crazy how many ruins are in Peru and have barely been explored. I think most of the sites are waiting for some rich person to will all their money for excavations. I really enjoyed seeing the Huacas, and it was a fun public bus ride through a tiny village of Moche descendants. The Moche built an elaborate irrigation system from the river, and the village around the Huacas is lush, with lots of farms and plants and GREEN. Such a contrast from our current desert dwellings.

Last week we went to see Chan Chan, which is located in between Trujillo and Huanchaco. This place did not have the irrigation nor any communities living close to the ruins. It was dry and dusty. The main road actually cuts through one of the temples, so anyone who commutes to Trujillo or Huanchaco sees the ruins every day. Chan Chan consisted of 9 royal compounds, and only one is restored and available for the public. Chan Chan was not pyramidal like the Huacas, it has high thick walls and it’s a bit maze-like with a lot of hallways and rooms. Since there weren’t any roofs, most of Chan Chan has been eroded by the weather. There was no colorful friezes (although they used to be colored) and most of the friezes were restored (where the Huacas were all original). Their artwork on the walls was less angry God man and more ocean art (pelicans, sea otters, fish and fishnets). The ruins were built around 1300 ad and covered over 28 sq km, which is HUGE. It’s really hard to believe that this many people, without cranes or brick building factories, had accomplished this much work. I am quite the lazy modernized American. It was neat to see the ruins, especially since it’s the largest pre-Columbian city in the Americas and the largest adobe city in the world (according the Lonely Planet). The coolest part of Chan Chan was when we came upon the well. Everything so far in the tour was dry, dusty and eroded. Then we entered this area with basically an Olympic sized swimming pool filled with totora reeds, lily pads and silly ducks that ran on the water and dove under the water for minutes at a time. I had been wondering what a culture living near the ocean did for fresh water and now I know. The Chimu people (of Chan Chan) just kept digging until they hit the groundwater and filled a large enough area to grown their reeds for their fishing boats and have drinking water. There were 3 wells built in the compound we visited, but we only saw the biggest and coolest one. There was a sacrificial alter near the well, too. There’s always the sacrificial alter, which is sad. I don’t know how they choose, but it’s always their own people they kill to appease the gods for more rain. Oh, and the Chimu people lived from 850 ad to 1470 ad. They seemed to be more interested in making huge buildings with lots of walls than elaborate paintings or pottery. They did do a lot more metalwork, as they found a lot of gold and silver buried with the kings (as well as 40 bodies with one king). The Chimu people were eventually conquered by the Incas and seemed to have just died out. I don’t really know why so many distinct cultures in Peru just disappeared, perhaps I will find a guide one day with the answer. So far it’s either warfare, weather, famine or the Spaniards.

Or the dinosaurs ate them all up.

I love to travel and don’t mind roughing it, but I thought I’d share a few comforts that I miss back home:

• Eating the peels on fruits and vegetables
• Putting toilet paper in the toilet, not a stinky little trash can
• Sealed windows, indoor heating
• A hot water faucet in addition to the cold faucet (instead of one faucet: it’s a little different washing plates without hot or even warm water)
• Not being afraid to get diarrhea every time I eat
• Drinking water out of the tap
• Bathtubs
• A washing machine in the house
• Having a freezer
• Red ale and IPA beer
• dark chocolate!
• a garden or even a yard
• toilet paper in every public bathroom (including theaters and restaurants)
• not having to pay to pee in a hole in a ground

Don’t get me wrong, I’m surviving just fine. There’s plenty of things I don’t miss, like having a car or a schedule or working an 8 or more hour day.

We have been eating rather well and I felt like a warrior the first week in Peru. We did what locals told us not to do (drink the tap water, walk around ruins without a paid guide, walk around at night), not because we’re stubborn or unbelieving, but more so that we haven’t really encountered anything we felt unsafe about. When someone tells you strawberries are poison but you just ate a bunch a few days earlier and were fine, you think people are just being overly cautious of our gringo bellies. We were fine with steri-pen-ing our tap water in Lima, but it tastes horrible in Huanchaco. Boiled, it’s okay. Bottle water tastes a little better, but some brands are just as bad as the tap water.

Anyways, my food warrior days are over, as I have been sick for over a week. We’ve been eating well, lots of rice, beans and avocado (palta). I may have nothing interesting to say for awhile until I start doing interesting things. I won’t go into the details (sorry, Brian) but I had a sore throat and head cold. When I felt better, I went surfing with Matt, which took ALL my energy away. I shortly thereafter had a fever and intestinal issues. No fun, especially since our house at Wilma’s is constantly under construction and she’s noisy (and nosy) in our kitchen at 7am. Today we awoke to the blender, then the insanely loud doorbell, then the painter sanding the walls.

I like Wilma, she means well and is very caring, but the concept of consideration just doesn’t exist. That said, I’m losing a lot of sleep waiting for her husky who lives on the roof to stop barking at everything he sees, then being startled by bells or Wilma. I assume this is a reason I am not getting healthier faster. Regardless, it’s annoying and Matt and I have decided to look for a new place. We waited out 2 weeks and it’s not getting better.

Yesterday we saw La Tribu, which is a very cool bar run by sculptor and philosopher, Luis. He’s very eccentric and interesting but not very to the point. There are 3 volunteers that live there currently and they love it. It’s a nice little community, and Luis cooks breakfast for everyone and the only annoyance may be that we can’t use the kitchen in the evening and the bar may be loud (it usually opens around 10 or 11pm). But it seems chill and that’s an option. There’s no dogs that live there nor is there construction inside (but the neighbors are working on something). The only concern is that it’s a little more expensive, it’s his work area, so it’s quite dusty and there’s big cockroaches. But those are two things you can’t really escape in our town, so we’ll see what the other place will be like tonight. The rumor is that it’s very nice and very clean and is about the same price we’re paying at Wilma’s ($7 a day with a kitchen). But we won’t have people painting the hallway at dawn outside our door or be awoken with deafening phones or doorbells.

Sorry this isn’t more exciting of a post, but I thought I’d let ya’all know what I’m up to. Nothing’s perfect but I’m enjoying the restaurant very much (throw those health codes and danger zone concepts out the window! Stuff is cooked in the morning and sits out all day long. No fruits or vegetables are refrigerated unless, they are going bad. You can’t escape flies here, so they live harmoniously (if you don’t get sick) with the people and the food.)

PS the dog is a Perro sin pelo. A peruvian hairless dog. They look like creepy ghosts to me.

The whole concept of time in Peru is very different than western standards. There really is no “on time” or “late.” Things just sort of happen, and they happen much slower than I am used to. Luckily, it’s not as slow as Spain, where you can barely accomplish one errand a day. There is no 4-hour siesta here, but stores do randomly close during the day and I have yet to see any posted hours. Matt and I tried to go to a bar last night and on the door read a sign: If the outside light is on, come inside. The light was off, so we headed to another place. We just wanted a burrito so we returned to the place we had our anniversary margarita in. The same 8-year-old kid was serving us and we ordered a drink and a burrito to share. Well, he must have made the drink himself because the cook wasn’t even home (the restaurant kitchen is the house kitchen). We finished our coco loco and waited…and waited. The restaurant is also a surf shop and a group of people came back from a surf trip while we were waiting. One of the guys happened to be the cook’s son and we started talking and realized that his mother wasn’t home and he had no idea where she was. The kid didn’t tell us any of this and just assumed if he waited she would show up and he wouldn’t have to tell us anything. In the US this would be unheard of, a cook missing and a little boy taking in orders like she’s there. We must have waited a half hour before she finally showed up to make us a burrito.

But in Peru, no worries. Time does not matter like I think it does. Hopefully I can adjust.

Another interesting thing is that most houses and restaurants (which are really people’s homes) are open-air. There’s usually a roof over the kitchen and bedrooms, but our whole hallway in our house has no roof. I find this amazing because everything here is painted with water-soluble paint. Huanchaco does not rain and people have faith in that because if it did, anything that was painted would melt right off.

I had my first day of work today and I showed up and sat down to speak with Marilyn, the head of the restaurant (who I think is just a few years older than me). We talked for a bit and then she told me she didn’t need me today. So I have another day off (the restaurant is closed Monday and Tuesday), but I shouldn’t be frustrated because it’s on the Peruvian timetable. Hopefully I’ll work tomorrow and today I’m just going to rest because I’ve had a nasty head cold for the past few days. Sra. Wilma cut a giant stalk of her aloe plant in the garaje and soaked it in water. I’ve been chewing up the pulp and gargling it. She swears by it. I still feel sick, but I’ll keep trying.

Today we settled into our new home and walked around the town. We will live with Wilma for the next month, who is an older woman who lives alone in a nice house one block from the beach, and about a 5 minute walk to both our volunteer sites. She has a nice garaje, which is more of a courtyard filled with chairs and a garden that I saw a hummingbird visit this afternoon. We have our own room and a kitchen (yay!). The only other lodger (from Pittsburgh) left this morning. Wilma’s getting her kitchen painted because somehow salt water rises from the ground and marks up the walls, at least that’s what I understood. So for now, we are sharing the kitchen with her, which is fine. She made us breakfast this morning (toast and jam and tea) since we didn’t go shopping yet. When we walked out the door there was a produce cart, so we bought enough produce for the next few days. apparently it’s cheaper to buy produce from the cart than the mercado. I would think it’s fresher, too. Wilma watched us pick out what we wanted and when I grabbed a head of lettuce she yelled at me not to get it. When we were ready to pay, she came over and inspected our purchases and yelled at the guy that our spinach was limp and he shouldn’t sell it. Once the quality and price was approved by our new Senora, we brought our stuff inside.

It’s nice to already know the language. I may not be fluent, but I know enough to ask questions and understand her. No more going without hot water for a week like I did in Spain. (her water is heated by electricity but we only get water from the town from 7am-3pm. After that there’s a reserve tank on the roof but we are encouraged to not use it). We walked through and around and through town again, trying to find the lavanderia to wash our clothes. The girl who left this morning gave us some helpful tips about a lot of stuff, one of them being the lavanderia. There’s really only one in town with a sign, that charges sl. 5 to wash and sl. 6 to dry (Mr. Phil’s). But on the other side of town there’s a place called Chill Out that will do a bundle of laundry (wash and dry) for sl. 5. Chill Out also has a swimming pool (which is an in ground tub about the size of 4 bathtubs, but deeper), free wi-fi (hooray for Matt), food and happy hour from 6pm-12am (3 beers for sl. 10). We tried to bring our laundry there, but their dryer was broken and we couldn’t get our clothes until tomorrow. So we had to go to Mr. Phil’s for now, but we can hang our clothes to dry in our garaje.

We also (finally) found the grocery store that has the best deals- El Hornito on the street La Ficus. It’s a tiny jam-packed store full of almost anything you want, except nuts. They were almost out of fresh bread, so we grabbed a few rolls and now know to get there earlier in the day. We bought TP, soy milk, jam, quinoa cereal (the photo looks like oatmeal, we’ll see tomorrow), maca cereal, rice, quinoa, beans I’ve never seen before, the giant corn called chocle, spaghetti, sauce and swiss cheese that tastes more like cheese curds-it’s high in water content and tastes a little sour. The holes in the cheese are very small. I like it better than Swiss cheese. Tonight we meet with Peter and Juany, who run the show, to take care of our schedule.