So almost everyone decided to escape Lima during the ALC-EU Summit. Restricted roads made traffic gridlock. I travelled north to my father’s hometown of Trujillo. Yet no place was available to sleep in. So I took a bus to a beach town called Huanchaco.
This is a beautiful idyllic beach town. Most everyone will say the same about theirs. Yet, the beauty of this place is its mere simplicity.
Like the beauty of the women of Ayacucho. Prominent cheek bones are framed by heart-shaped faces. Yet that is not what makes them so gracious. I’d say it is their unaffected and unpretentious ways. Not adorned with artifice of make-up, or sense of entitlement. Just by their warmth, and woman’s innate coquetry.
On the shores of Huanchaco, one can inhale deeply a sense of peace and of well being. it has not been over developed. Instead of boats and yachts, there are horses of tortoras. These are manmade canoes made of the tortora plant; they stand in line along the beach. These are the same used by the Chimus before the 13th century. I saw surfers ride the waves, as a woman held a basquet and bent to collect live crabs on the shore.
Between the colonial city of Trujillo and Huanchaco. There lie the Chan Chan ruins. The palatial city of the Chimu civilization. On my way to Trujillo for lunch, I told the bus driver to let me off there.
I walked a long way to the ruins on my own. I took an inside track, climbed a hill, to view the basin of the ruins.
Overlooking the ruins atop of that hill, again I felt that deep nostalgia I had felt when I stood on Machu Picchu. A feeling of deep sadness overcame me, as tears ran down my face for all that was lost.
I took solace when a big black bird with wings as long as a condor, flew over head. It circled over me several times, and I responded by whistling.
I made my way further in, I was alone there, and I worried that if I fell, I had no cell phone to get aid. So I changed directions to look for the tour guides. I fell in with the tour, waiting for the herd to amble along, to sneak in to the prohibited zones.
On my way out, I asked a watchman if he knew if there were ghosts haunting at night. He said yes, that he had heard flutes, and drums beat, and the sounds of walking feet. Occasionally a light shone he said.
-“Do you want to spend the night?” he asked me.
I thought I’d want to, but not with him. I think it would be interesting to do so come spring equinox, or under a moonlit night. Certainly with another friend nearby.
Huanchaco is one of God’s testaments of his magnificent creations. It is really cheap to stay here. An ocean front room is about $20 US. It is a bohemian’s paradise.
.
