Sipan, Mancora and all the sunburning in between

We specifically stopped in Chiclayo to go to Sipan, a completely intact tomb of an elite man (the Lord of Sipan) of the Moche culture, and said to be one of the most important archeological discoveries in South America in the past 30 years (or so says Wikipedia). And since Whitney and I are kind of nerds, we made this a "must see" on our travel itinerary. Surprisingly, Jose and Humberto were equally as interested in visiting the site, as they're kind of nerdy, too, and, as Peruvians, incredibly interested in all history related to their country.

I haven't met a single Peruvian who isn't like that. If they haven't visited a cultural site in their country they still know more about it than the average guide book. In other words, they're fun to have along on trips like this.

The tombs in Sipan





Our guide was very good and we walked all through the site, even climbing down into one of the tombs. A lot of the stuff in the tombs are now replicas and the real stuff is the museums either on the site or nearby. It was still cool. Some of the tombs are still under excavation, as uncovering each tomb is a painstakingly slow process. Inside the museum, we got to see the real stuff. Jewelry, weapons, skeletons, etc. Good stuff.

Inside the museum






It was so hot that day that exhaustion set in early. We still attempted to see some of Chiclayo, particularly the main market (kind of cool, but we have good markets in Cusco so our standards are pretty high), but tired quickly and made our way back to our hotel to hang out in their sitting area for the next couple of hours until it was time to catch our bus to Mancora.

When we went searching for buses to Mancora earlier in the day we only found one company that went there. That seemed odd, since Mancora isn't that far from Chiclayo (about 5 hours) and a major vacation spot for Peruvians. But because it was so hot and we were so tired and hungry, Whitney and I split up with the boys to go to the grocery store to buy ourselves some lunch (they went to a restuarant for a Menu -- a cheap, Peruvian lunch consisting of soup and a main dish -- they'll eat soup in any weather). Whit and I just couldn't take another Menu, so we thought the grocery store around the corner would be a better option and we'd come back and meet the boys at the restaurant. When we got back to the restaurant with our purchases, they were nowhere to be seen. And since my cell phone was in the bag Humberto was carrying (and Whitney lost hers on the way to Trujillo), we had no way of contacting them. And we really had no idea where we were. Sigh.

We figured that they'd eventually find us (even if we were sitting on a bench on the other end of town), and we were right. Or rather, we parked ourselves in a bus terminal halfway between the supermarket and the restaurant and eventually they walked past. We would have been more annoyed if they hadn't come back with information about the buses to Mancora. Apparently they searched for and found the bus terminal that had the buses we needed (there were 3 terminals within 2 blocks and we'd only been to/found 2 out of the 3), so we went back there, chose a bus and a time and bought our tickets for later that night.

And then we almost missed our stop in Mancora. We arrived around 3am and no one announced our arrival. The bus was headed further north to Piura, so this was just a stop along the way. And I was asleep. Fortunately, Humberto and Whitney were awake and realized where we were just as the bus was pulling away. We got them to stop again, grabbed our stuff and disembarked bleary-eyed and a little discombobulated.

Mancora, while a party town, was a ghost town at 3am on a Thursday morning. Nothing was open and we had no idea where to go or what to do. But the moto taxis knew that's just how they'd find us and couldn't wait to "help" us find a place and pay an exhorbitant fee (10 soles!) to shuttle us from hotel to hotel. But since we really had no other choice, that's what we did. After checking out a few overpriced dumps, I pulled out the Lonely Planet book and asked the taxi to take us to Laguna Camp, the bungalo-style hotel recommended in the guide. We ended up waking the proprietor, who was surprisingly nice about it, and settled on neighboring bungalos for 30 soles a night. They were cute and comfortable and the lukewarm showers were clean and refreshing in such hot weather. It was also 1/2 a block from the beach, had a communal kitchen and loads of hammocks. We stayed for 3 days.

Laguna Camp



Sunning on the beach, eating ice cream, reading and swimming. That's pretty much how we spent the next couple of days. It was awesome and we were ready for it. Humberto spent most of the time in the water, but the waves were a bit rough for me, so I just went for "dips" and then went back to our towels to read and nap. And, I swear, I did everything I could to NOT get sunburned (sunscreen, umbrella, etc), but was unsuccessful. I looked like a strawberry for the first couple of days (and could not escape Jose and Hum's mocking), but tanned out nicely in the end. So there.

Mancora





Our communal kitchen allowed us to go to the mercado and get some fresh seafood to cook, so we had a nice family dinner one night of pasta and seafood. It was delish. The whole bag of mixed seafood (shrimp, octopus and calamari) cost 12 soles (about $4).

Laguna Camp's resident puppy, Duke, begging for food

Our 12 sole dinner


We parted ways with Whitney and Jose after our time in Mancora, as they were headed to Tumbes and we were crossing the border to Ecuador. Stay tuned...