There were no direct buses from Huaraz to my next destination, the beach town Máncora. So the best way to go was with a connection in Trujillo. My bus arrived there at about five in the morning, and the bus to Máncora left at eight in the evening - with another bus company from another terminal at the other end of town, of course ;-)
This left me with an entire day in Trujillo - luckily I could store my backpack at the bus company's office, otherwise the day wouldn't have been much fun. I was early enough to easily make it to the main square, the Plaza de Armas, in time for sunrise. Whoever said that the best photos are usually taken within an hour of sunrise or sunset definitely had a point:
My next stop, after killing some time waiting for the opening hours, was the toy museum. They had a collection of delightful old toys, many of them bringing to mind sweet childhood memories. Like this model train - I'm pretty sure we had one that, at the very least, looked incredibly similar.
The historical center of Trujillo has apparently been spared from any natural disasters, and so there are many nice colonial buildings to look at. Especially the white gratings in front of the windows seem to be a Trujillo specialty. They can be seen with different patterns all over town.
Some of the colonial houses are open to the public, housing anything from banks to small museums. This one had some great old furniture and chandeliers, recreating the grand interior all of these houses must have had.
Trujillo also has an archeological museum displaying mostly ceramics from the earliest settlements until after the Spanish conquest. I was very impressed by the craftsmanship with which the ceramics were made and the amount of detail in every item.
But, what impressed me most was the one display case with pieces from after the Spanish conquest: these were suddenly not finely crafted and painted anymore, but rather crude, at about the level of skill a ten year old kid exhibits after two hours of instruction (I know, because we did some pottery at school when I was ten... and the results were not very elegant). This sudden decline in ceramics quality, after thousands of years of very fine work, really surprised me.
I also spent quite a bit of time just reading in the shade on the Plaza de Armas, and in between admiring the view on all sides of the plaza - like this one with Trujillo's cathedral:
This left me with an entire day in Trujillo - luckily I could store my backpack at the bus company's office, otherwise the day wouldn't have been much fun. I was early enough to easily make it to the main square, the Plaza de Armas, in time for sunrise. Whoever said that the best photos are usually taken within an hour of sunrise or sunset definitely had a point:
My next stop, after killing some time waiting for the opening hours, was the toy museum. They had a collection of delightful old toys, many of them bringing to mind sweet childhood memories. Like this model train - I'm pretty sure we had one that, at the very least, looked incredibly similar.
The historical center of Trujillo has apparently been spared from any natural disasters, and so there are many nice colonial buildings to look at. Especially the white gratings in front of the windows seem to be a Trujillo specialty. They can be seen with different patterns all over town.
Some of the colonial houses are open to the public, housing anything from banks to small museums. This one had some great old furniture and chandeliers, recreating the grand interior all of these houses must have had.
Trujillo also has an archeological museum displaying mostly ceramics from the earliest settlements until after the Spanish conquest. I was very impressed by the craftsmanship with which the ceramics were made and the amount of detail in every item.
But, what impressed me most was the one display case with pieces from after the Spanish conquest: these were suddenly not finely crafted and painted anymore, but rather crude, at about the level of skill a ten year old kid exhibits after two hours of instruction (I know, because we did some pottery at school when I was ten... and the results were not very elegant). This sudden decline in ceramics quality, after thousands of years of very fine work, really surprised me.
I also spent quite a bit of time just reading in the shade on the Plaza de Armas, and in between admiring the view on all sides of the plaza - like this one with Trujillo's cathedral:
