Hunachaco to Máncora: Chasing the Sun
Hunachaco to Máncora: Chasing the Sun.
June 4.
Staying up late for nothing really screws up a day. It was 3pm before I left the hostel today and I walked out onto the beach and warm weather that I have been longing for as I have been chasing the sun and wondered what took me so long to get my ass out the door. I should have known it would be awesome outside because the mosquitoes had already found me.
I caught a ‘combi’ (mini-van bus) to Chan Chan, which was the largest pre-Columbian city in the Americas. It is thought to have housed over 60,000 people and was built in 1300. Things seemed to be really getting underway in South America until the Europeans came to civilize the ‘savages’ and rape the land and culture. Chan Chan is massive city of mud walls as high as 10 meters, and the city was sectioned into many different parts. I find it disturbing that in my education system, we learned nothing of such a thing. Why had I never heard of Machu Picchu or Angkor Wat before I grew up to travel? How much about the American Constitution and the British Empire do I really need to know? I guess it is a conquered people scenario where winners of modern society dictate the education and the losers are left behind to perish in our minds. Luckily, they left clues and of their existence behind.
I am living a similar situation to how my German ex-girlfriend and I ruled Australia. Sunshine is the target and chasing the sun is life. As with her when we would drive north in search of sunshine and I would tell her to roll down the window to test the temperature of the air at intervals until we are happy, I am doing the same again. I left Cusco on a 20 hour overnight bus in search of heat as I am chasing the sun. A day in Lima, and the coolness found me at night. So, I caught the bus 9 hours north to Huanchaco where I spent the night and awoke today. The air was cool at 7pm, so I headed for a 9 hour bus ride further north towards the equator. Bring me the sun!
El Dorado bus lines made me place a finger in ink and then place a dot in my place on a paper that determined the seating plan of our vessel. Then, as we sat in our seats, the stewardess walked down the aisle with a video camera to momentarily capture every passengers face. That will make you wonder about safety and identity purposes through the night as you try to sleep. Then the stewardess again came along again with a large black garbage bag, from which she reached into to pull out a bun with chicken and mayonnaise on it for each person as she made her way down the aisle of the bus as a child behind me bawled at the top of his lungs. The impression upon me is that I am on a lesser liner than my previous bus journeys.