Taking the bus from Trujillo to Chiclayo

We continue this morning our way north to Chiclayo with another comfortable bus journey. We arrive a little after lunch and walk the 200m separating us from our hotel. 
The hotel looked big on the pictures when I booked it, but it’s no more than a narrow staircase street front and then it finally gets bigger on the 1st floor. The entrance is misleading. It’s very simple and comfortable. This afternoon we have to figure out our way to Cuenca and the various tours for tomorrow.

We start with a very nice seafood meal in the restaurant right opposite our hotel, we are close to the coast line after all. Then we walk to the main square which is fairly small, compared to the ones we have seen before. The streets of the city center of Chiclayo are similar to the ones in Cusco they are paved and the streets are narrow. However, the moment you are out of the main streets it’s dirt path or packed earth, no more asphalt. 

We make a first stop at Moche tours, we used them in Trujillo, and they have an office here too. The office is on a side street, there is tiny tiny board sign and you need to ring to get in. The actual office is on the first floor of the building… but luckily for us, it’s open on Sunday. Our good luck streak stops here, I didn’t check, but most of the tourist sites are closed on Monday and the tour to visit the Lord of Sipan tomb, museum and another close by site finished at 6pm. Therefore, we won’t be able to take the bus the same night to Ecuador. We decide to stay another night in Chiclayo. We are a little tired and a day of nothing isn’t a bad option even if it’s not the best city to get stuck in. 

The tour is booked for Tuesday, next is securing our border crossing. We take an uber to Plaza Norte bus station. Along the way, as we get in the outskirt of the city, it gets seriously disgusting, the street is full of garbage. We arrive in an unimpressive, tired looking, building with peeling paint. That’s the regional and local bus station. The office is open there for the two cross-border companies that go to either Guayaquil or Cuenca. We book our tickets for Wednesday evening. They say it’s 160-degree bus but there are too many seats to chose from for it to be genuinely true. The border crossing is at around 1h30am. It’s going to be a very long night bus. We initially wanted to take the Cruz Del Sur to Guayaquil, but they stopped their route. Civa still does it but their reputation is just as bad as the Ecuadorian bus companies we have booked, so we might as well skip Guayaquil altogether and get to Cuenca directly.

We head back to the hotel, get an extra night booked and rest until night fall. I say rest, but I literally crashed 5min on the bed and I was out like the light. Alexis woke me up about 7pm to hunt for some food before it was too late. Neither of us is that hungry – we settle down for a coffee. If we take a small snack and some heavy drink, we should be good until tomorrow.

The little coffee shop is really nice and their coffee surprisingly good. Their dessert too (I got mango tiramisu). I was not expecting this is such as small city. The owner of the coffee shop is sitting a couple of tables away and he lives part of his time in the US and in Peru. We end up chit chatting for a few hours. Time flew by.