Huanchaco 26 a 31 de Julio

27 a 29 de Julio

Instead of staying in Trujillo, lovely as it was, we decided to make Huanchaco our home base for the next few days. Located about 8 miles west of Trujillo, Huanchaco is a little beach locale we had read was a popular resort spot with great surf. After checking into the Hotel Suiza, a decent little hostel about five blocks up the road from the beach, we proceeded to have a mellow day of exploring the town.

Huanchaco lives up to its name of being a sleepy fishing hamlet. It was not at all crowded, which it is reported to be come summertime. One of the cultural highlights of this beach town is the old reed boats lining the boardwalk and littering the shoreline. These are the same type of boats used over two thousand years ago by the pre-Incan Moche civilization (see “Huacas” for more about them). Nicknamed caballitos de tortora, or “little reed horses,” these boats, fashioned out of tortora reeds, have long been used for fishing.

In my estimation, Huancaco’s charm must be magnified by the sun. We were lucky to have a bit of sunshine the first afternoon we arrived, but the rest of the trip was Lima-grey. We made the most of it by setting out to explore the ruins littering this coastal desert locale. (We had grand plans to make a four-hour trek to a nature preserve boasting Spectacled Bears…but this never came to fruition despite our daily dreams of doing so.)