Pyramid spotting in northern Peru - just the 2 of us.

Our nephews having abandoned us to return to the more interesting activities of cricket tours and pitching for business we found ourselves alone again in Cusco. So rather than the gentle meanderings we had done with them we decided to up the pace a little. Se we jumped back on the night bus to Lima, where after a short layover in the city of mellow mists (boy is this cities winter weather boring.... constant low cloud, no wind, no sun, no variety), we headed north to Chiclayo. Before we departed however we did make use of the cities major attribute which is its profusion of spectacularly good upper range fancy restaurants where using the excuse of our wedding anniversary we had a very good lunch indeed before another night on the buses.

Chiclayo is the centre of the Peruvian pre Inca civilizations where scattered around the countryside are hundreds of adobe built truncated pyramids.... on which apparently they practiced human sacrifice. We took two day trips out to visit both the pyramids and the associated museums.

 These old trees lay scattered in the 'equatorial dryland' climate, a fairly unique ecology.

 We spent two days looking at the biggest man made piles of mud in the world!

 When they get an El Nino event (about once every 7 years) it really rains and these mud piles get eroded....

 A hotel we chose not to stay at... the Hotel Sucker!!!!.... needs a name change me thinks before it makes it onto the trip adviser listings!

 These incredible ruins, slowly disappearing under the occasional rains were massive constructions, around which a lot of archaeological work has been done, the discoveries have been put into a couple of really excellent museums.

 The grave goods of the societies leaders, along with other bodies, maybe sacrificed servants and wives were buried in very deep graves often 6 meters deep. Along with much gold and silver grave goods, all wonderfully curated in this museum.

 A reconstruction of on of the graves.... all the bodies and goods were in the museums.

So after two more hectic days and already very tiered we took yet another night bus to Equador. A full drama of a journey. All Peruvian buses have been 'get here for X time and the bus leaves at X + half an hour', so having checked our bags in we went across the road for a chinese meal only to discover that the bus had actually left at X! So with the possibility of our bags heading to Equador without us we were bundled into a taxi and off we set chasing the bus, Luckily we caught up with it and jumped aboard. Just as we had managed to get to sleep we arrived at the boarder so very dazed and confused we stood in line to do the usual immigration passport stamping routine. Finally back on board we drove off only for the bus to then run out of fuel at about 6 in the morning, so another hour and a half was added to the journey while one of the drivers headed off with jerry cans to procure more.

Thus we arrived dog tired and in need of a good rest at this wonderful organic farm in Cuenca where we have gone to sleep for a couple of days!