Into thin air

Arrived in trujillo mid afternoon and we were well ready to get off the bus. Driving through hot desert in a non-airconditioned bus with broken seats and smelly poeple was just not as fun as i expected.
Took a taxi to Casa de Clara, a hostal in a residential area. Nice place. Cozy. The owners were a bit off thier rockers, but could be worse. Spent a day walking around town, looking at churches, buying candy, and beeing touristy. Also, stopped into a travel agent and sussed out a tour for the next day to visit the ancient pre-incan ruins of Chan-Chan and a few more minor ones. We asked the agent, will the tour be given in english? “Si, Si. Claro. Non es un problema” (clearly we should have picked up on this hint)
The first temples were itneresting and large but really eaten away by time and wind. 1500 years od desert will do that. An interesting architectural note is that, every so often, they got tired of the old building and would build a enw one directly on top and essentially the same. So archeologists have an excellent way of comparing different time periods. But it sucks that they have to destroy one facade to get to the next. (how inconsiderate of the ancients!)
Chan-Chan was a city. Massive. Built from mud bricks, outer walls look like massive sand-dunes, but as you get into the inner-court the walls and halls take shape. 10m high. Massive courtyards with platforms for royalty. Areas for storage, sacrifice, living, celebrating. Even a built in pond. Some of the areas i think would be wicked staging grounds for paintball or other similar wargames. Lots of nooks and crannies. Not exactly culturally sensitive, but...
We were on a tour bus with all spanish speakers aside from a ocuple form dusseldorf. So, the entire tour was given en espanol and then when the guide finished her 10min speech, the turned to us and gave us a 1min synopsis. I think i annoyed her because i asked more than a few clarifying questions. (which were neccesary. Some of her explanations are as follow: “it is very important because it is important” and when i asked something like “how many ..... “ she responded “yes, of course.”)i think she was not feeling well also, so every time she finsihed speaking in spanish she turned to us and her smile fell away. Oh well. It was relly interesting anyway.
Next day, we took it easy. A bit of shoppin, getting bus tix, saw a movie. The theater had english movies with spanish subtitles. (wanted to see charlie and the factory but due to technical blah blah ended up seeing another movie based in scotland. Which to be honest, i could have used english subtitles for. Achh.
Got on a very bus double decker night bus to Huaraz that night. We were served snacks and drinks, provided blankets, and the seats almost went horizontal. 8hrs later, we arrived in a city in the middle of the Cordillera Blanca, the range in the Andes that has Perus highest mountain and other snow capped wonders. Beautiful veiws everywhere. The day we arrived we braved the uncertainty and managed to make our way on our own to a beautiful laguna in a notch between 2 massive granite snowcapped mountains. The laguna was a beautiful blue and it was really pretty though we were gaspin for breth because of the altitutde. The next day, Amy and Erica went off on a guided tour of local towns which ended in a walk on the glacier near immense ice caves. I went for a bike ride. Bus took me way up above the town into the foot hills and dropped me off at the pass. The road, ahem, if we would call it that, might have made a nice japanese rock garden sprinkled with patches of gravel, potholes, farm animals, and pieces of lesser mountain bikers. I survived relativly unscathed. (skinned elbow and knee + 2 near dog bites). Hard core, but fun. Which brings me to today. 10/2. Erica has gone off on a tour to explore some fantastic ancient ruins which i hope she will fill us in on soon, and amy and i are bumming around town taking care of errands and enjoying the slow life.Tonite we are on a bus bound for lima.