Northbound Recovery

Today is Tuesday and currently I am taking in some fresh air at a backpackers called El Mochilero located in Trujillo, a coastal city that sits about ten hours north of the Peruvian capital of Lima. I arrived here a little over an hour ago via a very spacious Oltura bus that left from Lima. The bus was booked extremely last minute and Jorge who worked at my previous hostel will be indebted forever thanks to his help. The plan is stay to here for a few days to see a few ruins such as the Chan Chan then spend some time on the beach in Huanchaco which is a small surfing village that borders the city about twenty minutes away.

A few changes have been made to the trip itinerary since the last blog post and the culprit behind it was a pretty bad case of the flu that sprang up in Puno. Seeing either the northern deserts of Chile or the other side of Lake Titicaca in Bolivia were the two original options outside of Puno but after a few days of heavy recuperation watching dramatic Spanish soap operas time has become severely limited. On January 18th, three days from now, I'll be staying with the family of my friend in Chiclayo and therefore had to head fairly quickly north through Peru.

After recovering in Puno I hopped a bus last Friday to Arequipa and instead of stopping then proceeded to hop another bus directly to Lima. The trip was about 22 hours and during this time the altitude dropped from 12500 feet down to 500 feet. This rapid change was a little too sudden and upon arrival in Lima there was heavy pressure in my head and absolutely no hearing from my left ear for two days.

Despite being half deaf and semi sick the time in Lima was very nice. Saturday night consisted of watching the 49ers win a playoff game at The Corner Bar with a 56 year old Californian named Ken and Sunday was filled with renting a bicycle for a ride through The Miraflores District then seeing a light show at Parque De La Reserva Circuito Magico De Agua. This basically is a really big water park that consists of a series of really big fountains, a must see if you are in Lima! Thankfully yesterday the left side of my head became adjusted to the change of climate then a friend named Melody from Couch Surfing and I met to do a language exchange and walk around the city. Overall Lima was a great experience and now I'll be in the North coast for the rest of the month.

I hope everyone is doing really well and more updates are soon to follow! Take care.