Back from Vacation!

I just got back from a 4-day trip to Trujillo and Chiclayo on the northern coast, so I'm super behind on blogging, but I'll try to recount my adventures little by little.

Tuesday:
Class from 1-3, then Girl's Day Out with my friend Mary. We walked from campus to Plaza San Miguel and had some delicious gelato at Laritza. Then we took a taxi to Miraflores to watch the soccer game. It was Peru vs. Chile, so I figured it was going to get crazy! (Peruvians haven't been big fans of Chile ever since the War of the Pacific) We met up with Andy, Hannah, and Hugo at Parque Kennedy and got some sandwiches, then headed over to the Calle de las Pizzas (Pizza Street) to find a bar to watch the game at. 

Calle de las Pizzas

We were a little late. Everything was packed, and people were standing on the street looking into the bars to watch the game. 
So we left Calle de las Pizzas and walked around looking for something else. We found a bar that was able to scooch some chairs into a corner for us (and they had 2 for 10 soles drinks, Bonus!)

Unfortunately, history repeated itself, and Chile once again conquered Peru, 4-2. 
Afterwards, we met up with a couple of Mary's friends for drinks, then we went to the grocery store to buy stuff to make Bloody Mary's for horror movie night at Jorge's. 
We headed over, and hung out for awhile, but Raquel and I were both feeling kind of sick, so we went home before we actually watched the movie. 
I had horrible muscled aches and Raquel had been sick for awhile, so I really hoped I wasn't coming down with anything before the trip!


Wednesday:
Classes all day. At 9:00 I went home, mama called me a taxi right away, I got all my stuff ready and headed to the Cruz del Sur bus station. Hannah, Nichole, Ashley and Ashley's new housemate from the multi-country program, Karalyn, met me there. Our bus left at 10:45. The seats were actually really comfy, but we were on the bottom deck, and it was completely walled off in front, which made me feel a little car sick, but luckily I was able to sleep the whole way. 


Thursday: 
I woke up to the sound of orchestral music blaring out of the speaker right above my head on the bus. It was really unnecessarily loud and continued for about 15 minutes until they finally let us out at Trujillo. 
We walked to the Plaza de Armas and started looking for a cheap hostel. We finally found the hostel district and got a room at the Hotel Korona that would hold all 5 of us for 90 soles a night, or about $7 per person. It wasn't the Hilton, but it wasn't bad. 
A block down, we found a little restaurant and we got some breakfast. Bread with avocado, coffee, and papaya juice, all for about $2. 
Then we walked to the Plaza de Armas to try to find some tour companies. One found us right away, and we booked one for Friday. Then we walked around to look at the casonas. These are old mansions that are open to the public for free to look around. Both of the ones we saw are now owned by banks. They were pretty cool though, and usually had art or pottery on display. 
After going back to the hotel, we consulted my guidebook and decided to visit the Museo Arqueologico de Jose Cassinelli Mazzei. It said it was a museum in the back of a gas station that was Cassinelli's personal collection, and that he usually personally gave tours to visitors. Sounded interesting. 
We took a taxi and were surprised when he stopped and said we were there. It really was hidden behind a gas station, with just a little sign to indicate that there was a museum there. 
There were only 2 other people there, an older French couple. It was basically one large room lined with shelves and shelves of ceramic artifacts from the different cultures of the area: Moche, Chimu, Vicus, etc.
He took us around and explained all the interesting facts about all of them. It was crazy, because in most museums, you can't touch anything, and he would just grab stuff off the shelf to show us, or play the ancient musical instruments for us, and offer to let us try it, too. It was really cool. 

From there we walked around trying to find a restaurant that would serve lunch at 4 in the afternoon. Not easy to find in Peru. We ended up going to one where we waited for about an hour for our food and had some really shitty service (tips aren't a thing here, so waiters don't really care about doing a good job), but at least it was good food. I had some crab chowder. 
Afterwards we walked around a little bit, then headed to our hotel to relax for a while. My guidebook said that the Chelsea Pub had a piano bar on Thursday nights and was a great place to go for music and dancing. We got there and it was completely empty. No piano bar (apparently my guidebook's a little outdated). So we had dessert and a drink, sat and chatted, then called it a night.


More to come!