Rygsækrejsen 2015-2016: Bus from Huaraz to Mancora beach in less than 24 hours (Huaraz-Trujillo-Chiclayo-Mancora)

We woke up on the bus to the bus attendant announcing our early arrival in Trujillo. Night busses always seem to be early for some reason. The bus terminal and Trujillo is brand new and looked more like an airport when we left the bus. We got our luggage and waited inside the terminal with the rest of the passengers. It was still dark outside and the only action around were two guys cleaning the floor of the main terminal area and the woman selling tickets to the toilets. Everything else was closed.

After 20 minutes another bus arrived at the terminal and Malene spotted the sign in the window of the bus saying "Chiclayo". Malene tried her luck and asked the bus driver if there was room for two more. 20 Soles and we were on our way. A bit excited to see if we actually got it right from the driver who seemed to be a bit grumpy this morning only mumbling a few phrases in Spanish as he loaded our luggage on the bus.

We did head North - next leg of the journey and we were unexpectedly on our way. Originally we had planned for being "stuck" in Trujillo spending the day at a cafe and maybe going to the ruins, but now we headed out of town and the sun had just cleared the horizon.

We arrived at Chiclayo around 9:30 in the morning, the bus station for our bus company being more like a small and crowded courtyard with passengers trying to get off and taxi drivers trying to get new customers. We got our luggage, fended most of the taxi drivers off, asked at the ticket office whether they had a service going North to Mancora - which they didn't. A nice tuk-tuk driver offered to take us to a bus company that did have service to Mancora and we had our luggage tied on to his tuk and raced through the busy morning traffic. On the way he asked if we wanted to go for the morning or evening service - morning, please. It turned out it left at 10 AM so we had around 5 minutes left before departure when he pulled over in front of the bus terminal. Malene ran in to get tickets, Mikkel took care of the luggage and then we just had to wait for a while for our slightly delayed service to Mancora. The bus was almost full this morning, a good indication that there aren't that many services going North. We were happy, now being on the bus for our final destination at least 12 hours before expected and even though the guy in front of us insisted on listening to crap salsa music on his mobile phone it didn't spoil the experience.

Looking out the windows there wasn't much to cheer about. A few dusty towns, dry desert and lots of trash. The whole stretch of road littered with plastic bags and other waste blowing around in the wind.

We arrived in Mancora at the main square where the bus off loaded most of the passengers and cargo. 922 kilometres in little more than 17 hours including three different busses. Not bad at all. The bus arriving at Mancora created the usual stampede of passengers, tuk tuk and taxi drivers the latter wanting business. Mikkel took care of getting the luggage while Malene found a tuk tuk and then we headed back out of town again, 2 minutes on the paved road and then 15 on a small dusty road running along the ocean. Just one unplanned stop on the way when the road got so bumpy that Mikkels back pack decided to jump off the back of the tuk tuk.

Then we made it to our place - or at least the place we had reserved for tomorrow. We found the guy taking care of the place and he was a bit confused to see us a day early but we got our bungalow - right on the beach and the place seemed very quiet. In fact it was only us staying there and one other guy. Julio - the guy looking after the place - cooked dinner for us and we had a couple of well deserved pisco sours for the sunset. We didn't bother going our looking for food or drinks. We just needed a bed that didn't move tonight please. We only have to listen to the waves crashing on the shore tonight. Wonderful.