Trujillo and Fun

Well we have had to jump on a bus for the first time here on our trip. Between our last stop, Guadalupe, and Trujillo there is a small town named Paijan. This time is famous for cane fields and cyclist robbery. Some people decide to attempt to pass the city and have no problem but many people have been robbed recently and many have narrowly escaped. Anyhow, we decided that getting on a bus for about 130 Km is not too bad to avoid this, and the massive expanse of desert that is the coast of Peru. Now we are resting in Trujillo enjoying the company of other cyclists here in a casa de ciclistas. We have met very few other cyclists on this trip and the casa de ciclists here in Trujillo is kind of a cyclist mecca. Everyone goes here.


Me and Merilee had plans to leave today but we had some work to do at an internet cafe this morning so we headed out to do it. As usual, we were up too early and the cafe wasn't opened. Merilee walked into the hardware store next door to see if they knew what time the cafe opened. Before she had the chance to ask some random kid walks up behind her and grabs her butt and starts to take off. Merilee turns after the kid and grads him by the hand and demands an apology. He spitefully says he's sorry. But, by now passerbyers and the hardware store guy have taken note of the situation and are telling him that he is disgracing the people of Peru by his actions. Then the police drive by and hop off their motorcycle to join the fray. It was good to see some people on our/Merilee's side in trying to give this kid a message that what he did was complete crap. Anyhow, the police took him and us down to the station to write up a report on what happened. They told us that they were going to call his parents (he was 17) and hold him for 24 hours. Never has anyone really taken that next step of assault on us like this kid did. It was a bit uncomfortable though because the police while detaining the kid proceeded to assault him as well, by slapping his face mostly as asking him what are you doing/thinking? They also rather roughly pressed him against the wall the. I think Merilee and I agree it may have been better had the police never showed up because local people were seriously offended by his action (Still harassing/yelling at women appears alright) and talking with him. Although one guy also landed couple of slaps on his face. But, still it was pretty poor actions on the police side of things in how they treated the kid.

So, after all this fiasco we finally made it to the internet, which had opened by then. Since it was getting later in the day we decided not to leave because the afternoons on the coast just bring too much wind to really ride too many miles. It just goes to show you never know what kind of road blocks we will meet!



Photos; Streets of trujillo, Church in Guadalupe, lunch in Guadalupe, Classic car for dad