Thursday, March 22, 2012

A weekend in Trujillo

This weekend I went to Trujillo with Fabricio to meet his family and I invited my friends Kathy and Emily to come along. We left on Thursday night at 10:45 p.m. and arrived to Trujillo at about 8:30 in the morning on Friday. First thing was first…showers! After we showered we had some breakfast and headed to the center of Trujillo where Fabio got us set up for 8 hours of tours. We went through some buildings in the center of Trujillo and also got tours of some ruins near the outskirts of town. After our tours were over we headed back to Fabricio’s house and his mom had prepared lunch. Since there were “guests” at the house she prepared her best, most Peruvian dish…ceviche (raw fish) O gosh…after this trip, let me tell you…I am a pro at gagging the most disgusting things down! I’m sure his mom is a wonderful cook but I am just not the right taste tester for her. Fabricio knows I really do not like Ceviche so once his mom left the room and I had finished my acts of “Si, senora me gusta mucho! Que rico!!” He took my plate and snarfed it down. Thank you Fabio! The next dish was just the usual of Peru which is, you got it…rice and chicken. I cannot remember a Peruvian meal that I have not eaten with rice.

The next day we got up and had some breakfast and headed to the beach with Fabricio’s girlfriend while Fabricio stayed home and helped his mom prepare duck for lunch. ALllll day I was thinking about how I was going to have to eat duck and keep a smile on my face. I pulled it off though! When we got home the dining room table was all set and there on my plate waiting for me was a nice big piece of duck, rice, and beans. It was actually good! I am so shocked! But, boy let me tell you, I couldn’t get away with a whole meal being good this weekend. For dessert, we had a big hard, freaky textured piece of cheese with honey drizzled on it and when I chewed it, it squeaked. I was having some issues getting this bad boy down! But thankfully, this is Fabio’s favorite dessert, so he finished mine for me. That night we went to a huge party in Trujillo because on Sunday they were going to have a bull fight so this was like a pre-party. It was pretty fun!

Sunday morning we got up, ate some breakfast and headed out to the country. It was so pretty out there! We ate some lunch and walked down to the river. There were sooo many bugs though! They ate us all alive! These bites are so crazy though! They itch more than any bug bite I’ve ever had and they all had weird red, bloody dots in them! Blek! Then, we went back to the house, packed our stuff and had some crackers with jelly on them for supper. (we did a lot of eating this weekend) Our bus left at 10:45 p.m. so Fabricio and his parents dropped Kathy, Emily, and I off. Fabricio was not traveling back to Lima this night because he was going to stay one extra day in Trujillo so it was just us 3 and this is when the adventure truly began!

I went to sleep right away because I was pretty tired and at about 12:45 a.m. I woke up and noticed that our bus was stopped so I looked out my window and we were just sitting on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. I could tell that our hazard lights were flashing and I heard our driver was yelling at some guy but I couldn’t see him because he was behind a curtain. My first thought was of course the worst but I stayed calm and just sat there for a little bit. Then our bus turned on and we started moving so I was like “Phew!! All is well” buttttt then our bus stopped again and our driver was silent. So I woke up Kathy and Emily. At first they were just peachy and calm but then we heard more yelling so we looked out the window and there was a police officer and some guy getting in each other’s faces and about ready to throw punches. At this time Emily was like “I’m with you Nicki, something isn’t right”. At this moment the stewardess came in and told us that there was a protest of illegal miners and they were blocking the highway so no buses or cars could get across and that the police should have it under control in about 1 hour and we’d be on our way. Soo hearing the wonderful news of just one hour, I went back to sleep. Next thing I know I wake up and it is 6 a.m. and we are still sitting on the side of the road but we are completely surrounded by buses and people, and cars and it is was a madhouse. They told us again that the police were going to come and get it under control by 8 am. They said if we weren’t on our way by 8 a.m. we would head back to Trujillo. Wellll 8 came around and no such luck..we were still just sittin’ there. So at about 9 a few of us got off the bus and walked to a store and bought some ice cream because there was no food left.  There were soooo many buses. I would honestly say there were probably about 400-500 buses and people were just in every nook and cranny of this little town of Casma.  At this time people were starting to tell us that there was also a protest going on that was blocking the road back to Trujillo and that we could potentially be stuck there for 3 days. We started to freak a little but everyone was relatively calm. As the morning went on people started to ditch their buses and if you looked out of your window you would see herds of people walking with their suitcases and they had plans to try to get across the protesters themselves and catch some form of transportation on the other side. At about noon I got a call from Nela and she was freakin a leak! She told me how scared she was for me and worried and told me I had to stay with a Peruvian no matter what, I could not get off that bus alone. At about 2 Emily went with some Peruvian ladies and bought us a huge thing of water to share and some crackers to munch on while we watched more movies in the bus. Then people started to get a little more antsy. This one lady came up and sat next to me and I don’t always understand people’s Spanish when I first meet them but o goodness I understood absolutely everything this lady was telling me and boy did she stress me out!!! She was telling me how dangerous it was going to be if we stayed there when it got dark, and that people would die, and us 3 were especially in danger, and how the buses would get ransacked and women would get assaulted. Her main point was we needed to go back to Trujillo. A lot of the people on the bus wanted to go back to Trujillo but the bus driver didn’t because his boss wouldn’t let him. If we went back, they had to pay us ½ of our ticket and the boss didn’t want to do that. I was like “What in the world?!?!? He needs to think about all these people’s safety, not the money!” Then, some guy got on the bus and told us how there had been assault just up the road. That one sent me through the roof! I wanted to go to Trujillo!!! At 4 p.m. they turned the bus around and we were headed back. Just as I sighed my sigh of relief the bus stopped and turned around AGAIN. I asked the lady next to me what in the world we were doing and she said that they had heard the protest was over and we were going to Lima. LIES!! We sat there until 5:30. At about 6 it started to get dark so everyone came up to where we were and started yelling at the driver and finally we headed back for Trujillo at 6:30. I waited until I was sure we were really going back and I gave Fabricio a call. He told me he had talked to our professor about us missing class, and that he would be at the bus station in 3 hours when we were to arrive. When we got there it was such a relief! After 24 hours on that darn bus, I was soo ready to get off! We went back to his house, showered, and went to Pardo’s chicken at midnight. 

This is a link to a video that shows the protest that was holding my bus and hundreds of other buses up. 

The next day we hung out at the beach and that afternoon we got news that the protest was over so we called the bus company and it was true! So we bought our tickets and came home that night. Fabricio was with us this time too which made all of our nerves just a tad calmer I think!

Wednesday, when I got home I headed to campus and did some homework because I am so behind from missing 2 of my classes. Thursday I have grammar class and on Friday morning at 6 a.m. a group of us are flying to Arequipa. I sure hope this trip goes a little smoother than the last!

The Plaza de Armas of Trujillo

At the beach 


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