Pacasmayo & Trujillo

12 hours on the bus was honestly not bad. The attendant was kind of a dick but we didn't need to deal with him much. We had our choice of movies, dinner (which was supposed to be vegetarian and most certainly was not), and four seats to ourselves since Tania decided last minute not to come. I slept from around midnight until we arrived at 7:30 although there was plenty of waking/tossing/turning in between. We awoke to the attendant coming through to give us our "breakfasts" (a white processed bun with a square of processed cheese between and a chocolate muffin) and announcing that we'd arrived in Pacasmayo. We opened our eyes and saw what can only be described as a pueblito and certainly much closer to what I'd imagined than the fancy-pants places Jessy had taken us in Lima.

There were small houses and stands along a simple road and at some points we could see the beach. We got off he bus, put on our giant backpacks and walked just a few steps to the...taxis. They're awesome. They're little 3-seater carts attached to motorcycles. The bags were stacked two on the bottom and one on top in the back so we had to hold them from the inside as we drove. It was probably a five minute ride to the hostel and the temperature and sun were perfect.

A younger, not so enthusiastic guy let us in and took us into a tiny office where he told us that Eduardo, the owner and guy we'd set all of this up with, would be back in a while. He took down our information, gave us our key and showed us to our room.

Again, it was more than we'd expected. We were on the fourth floor with our own little terrace and table & chairs outside the room. We had a view of the ocean from both our room and the terrace and the air was absolutely perfect - warm with a nice breeze - to sit outside. The room had four beds (including one for Tania) and mine had a little spot of bird shit on the part of my blanket covering my pillow. How exciting! We had two simple bathrooms and a full kitchen. It seemed like a great place to spend two weeks.

We went downstairs for breakfast and met some of the other volunteers and guests at the hostel and Eduardo and his wife soon came.

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The next week was quite an interesting introduction to our time in Peru. Our Jobs were mostly cleaning the hostel and helping Andrea cook in the kitchen but the weird part was that there weren't many guests. It was a tiny surf town and surfers follow the swell; they weren't many waves that week which translated to a pretty empty town and not too much work for us. We spent time with the family...who were a little strange but friendly...and each other. Andrea and I had a few too many laughing attacks and we also spent an entire day playing soccer outside on a little field with a bus-full of elementary and middle school kids. I taught English to the family's two kids every day, Andrea cooked us amazing, healthy food and Lizzy and I made a bad-ass treasure hunt for their son's all-out, pirate-themed birthday party. Strange but awesome would be a perfect way for me to describe that first week but we decided that we didn't need to stay any longer. After one day of waves, guests and surf-attempts, we decided to say goodbye to Pacasmayo and head to Trujillo, one of Peru's biggest cities.


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Confessions of a Gonad is the name of a series of short stories I write to Lizzy to make her laugh. It started in Korea and has since continued and, since this one is Pacasmayo-related, I'm gonna stick it in here so I don't forget.


Confessions of a Gonad - Leaving Pacasmayo

Two small gonads, trembling in fear, sneak as quietly as possible down the stairs. They hear a fat, blubbering voice coming through the bedroom door straight ahead. "Step lightly!" the first one whisper-yells to the other. She runs ahead and positions herself to shut the door behind her fellow testy but, alas, it is too late. "Chicas!" booms a scratchy, pedophiliac voice. The door starts to open and the air fills with the smell of defeat. A man as large as a whale comes bounding through the door, picking out a wedgie on its way. The gonads are forced to stand and listen to the whale talk for what feels like hours.  He has nothing to say, yet finds every word that comes out of his own mouth extremely important. He twitches and sways back and forth like a crack addict while he talks, switching between wedgie-picking, ball-scratching and hair-touching. Finally, between whale sentences, the gonads manage to throw in a "so...!" and look-at-the-time!-We-have-to-go faces and make a dead sprint to the door. The lingering scent of dog piss and the fear of the whale calling them back accompany them to the door but they are finally free. Feeling lighter than air, they head back into the hostel to pack.

(All of those things really happened...except for the fact that Lizzy and I aren't gonads.)

(Don't judge me - it makes us laugh.) :D

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No one had answered us on couch surfing so we spent the night in Trujillo in a hostel, where we met an inspiring young man who was literally cycling the world. He was going on two years and eight months when we met him so we spent the night chatting with him and listening to his amazing stories. He showed us around the city a bit but there didn't appear to be a whole lot to do so we spent most of our time chatting in the hostel. The next day, we took a tour of the ancient ruins of Chan Chan and another little beach town called Huanchaco (which we liked even better than the beach in Pacasmayo-it was a pretty little town and there were tons of people learning to surf and things to do all along the boardwalk). On our tour, we made some new friends (a girl from Lima and another from Arequipa) and we've since met up with them in other towns. We decided from there to head a little further south to Huaraz so we said goodbye to our cyclist friend and the giant tourtise that lived in our hostel and headed out.

Getting There

After meeting through AmeriCorps in San Fran, talking about traveling together for years, then working and saving up in Korea, then a quick stop to Ohio, a short ride through Colorado, Wyoming, Kansas, Oklahoma and Arkansas, just two smooth flights later, Lizzy and I stepped into Jorge-Chavez Airport in Lima, Peru.

Oddly enough, it caught me off guard that I was supposed to be speaking Spanish in public. I'm still too used to being in Korea where I use Konglish and gestures in all formal situations. I typically (and truthfully) act like I don't know what's going on. My body and language have had to readjust; a few days after getting to Peru, I ran into a girl in the street and the first thing I did was say "sorry" (I guess I adjusted back to the US in the past month) but that obviously wasn't right. Immediately afterwards I bowed. Korea. Wrong again. By the time my brain was ready with "disculpa" the girl was already gone. It's coming back more and more each day though.

As our trip is no more planned than rough ideas of cities we want see, we decided the day before our trip to send out some couch surfing requests. None of us had ever done it before and it was a long shot being less than 24 hours away from needing a couch but we did it anyway. Best idea ever!

The first girl I wrote said yes even though she only had one  twin bed to offer. We didn't care because it was free so as soon as we all (Lizzy, Andrea - my friend from Mexico who I met salsa dancing in Seoul - and I) got to the airport, another friend from Korea came for us and we headed outside to find our way to our hostess's house.

As soon as we walked outside the airport, we were swarmed by about 15 different taxistas all trying to win the competition. Luis and his cousin were doing most of the talking (though it sounded more like arguing) but Andrea and one of the taxistas calmly made a deal on the side. Good thing, too, because it was the only guy that seemed to have enough space to fit five passengers (three with giant backpacks) in a five-person car. We stuffed ourselves in and headed out.

Andrea and I were ridiculously giddy on our way to Jessy's-excited to finally be together and traveling and curious to see what couch surfing would be like. The windows were down and the air instantly reminded me of Mexico. I can't quite put my finger on it but something about the fresh air and whatever the smells are here seemed exactly the same to me (although I hadn't been to Mexico in four years). I looked around a bit as we drove, although I was more interested in the people IN the car rather than what was outside of it as usual. I remarked on how similar it was to Mexico and how excited I was to be there but we mostly played catch-up the whole way there.

It was a short trip, although we had to turn around a number of times because no one knew exactly where the house was. Luis's cousin was up front with the driver and Lizzy, Andrea and Luis sat in the back with me on top of all of them. There was a wire cage between the back seat and the driver's seat to protect him, I supposed, and I began to think about what would happen if we crashed (since obviously I couldn't be wearing a seat belt and no one else either because - let's face it - back seats of cabs in Peru don't usually have working seat belts. I started, "If we choked...," too excited to think straight but just enough to create an excellent new Spanglish word. We all had a laugh and, when I finally got out the word "crashed," Lizzy finished my sentence with, "you'd be a waffle."

We had to turn around a number of times and, for whatever reason, cabs here beep each time they backed up, just like garbage trucks, which was cracking me up. When we finally found the house, our hostess, Jessy, came to the door in her pajamas and let us in. We said a quick goodbye to the boys and the taxista and headed inside. We went straight up the stairs - to the third floor - where she showed us to our room. It was small - there was a twin bed, a bookshelf, a chest of drawers, a chair with extra blankets on it and just enough room for our three back packs and about three square feet left of space for us to walk around the room. Andrea, loquita that she is, decided to sleep on the floor even though I insisted that we'd all fit in the bed if I slept on top of them. ;)

We slept in late and took our time getting ready in the morning. By the time Jessy came up to look for us, it was nearly 3pm. We went downstairs all together and sat at the kitchen table in their cute little house (they have four floors of bedrooms and I think three bedrooms for guests). She had made us smoothies and sandwiches - something that is totally above and beyond for couch surfing hosts. We sat and talked for more than an hour. Jessy, is the sweetest girl ever and it turned out that she happens to love salsa & bachata dancing which is exactly what Lizzy, Andrea and I bonded over. She ended up letting us stay for four nights instead of the one that we had requested and she showed us around all of Lima.

We walked around the Centro, went to a museum, an exposition, some malls and walked through all the parks along the beach. She took us to different places to eat every day (the ceviche here - omg!!) and out salsa and bachata dancing once every one of the full days that we were with her. We went to a rueda class, which was always one of our favorite styles, and then met up with those same people in a park to dance out in the plaza. That, alone, made me want to stay in Lima longer but I'd already committed to working elsewhere.

After a few busy days in Lima, it was time to head out! We took a 12-hour, $35, overnight bus up north to the surf hostel where we'll be working for the next couple weeks. We've got our own full room on the fourth floor that overlooks the ocean. We have the day off today and work starts tomorrow!