Beaches, Museums, and Ruins Oh My!

Here in Lima, everyone keeps asking us if we like Peru. The answer is of course yes, but with a disclaimer. So far we've only seen the northern coast of Peru, so we can't exactly offer up a fully informed opinion.

After leaving Ecuador, we took the Pan American Highway straight down the coast, stopping in only a few towns on our way to Lima. We decided to leave the mountains until later in the trip as right now it's the rainy season...didn't really feel like dealing with landslides and crappy weather. We also decided to book it to Lima in an effort to get the ball rolling on our volunteerism here in Peru.

Our first stop was Mancora, a party beach town with great surfing. We stayed about a week (mainly because of a stomach bug) which was just enough time to enjoy the food, waves, and genearl craziness without being driven crazy ourselves.

Next up was a stop in the not-so-impressive town of Chiclayo. It wasn't that it was a bad place, it's just that it's a normal South American town that isn't trying to impress the tourists. It was especially high on the hustle-and-bustle factor as we were there the week before Christmas and everyone was trying to get their last minute shopping done. Luckily for us, we weren't in Chiclayo to go shopping. We were there to visit the Lord of Sipan. Unfortunatly he has been dead for about 1,900 years so we decided to see his museum instead.

The museum is one of the Top 10 in the world...though according to who I can't say. It was a very cool experience. I have lots to say about it, but everytime I try to write more Blogger crashes on me.