Decker Trip - Panamerican Highway 1966

Nov 16. After getting up, we ate some peanut butter sandwiches in the car for breakfast. The wind was very cold, though we were in the desert.
Just out of [Chiclaya], the road runs through a section of crescent-shaped sand dunes.
http://images.travelpod.com/users/allisonandjeff/trip_2005.1111508220.img_1724.jpg The early morning sunlight accented the clean, smooth contours. Some of the dunes had already begun to creep onto the road, daring drivers to run over their amoeba-like toes. The desert stretches on most of the way along the shore interspersed with oases of rice and sugarcane fields.
About noon, we arrived at Trujillo, a good-sized city marked by a good deal of construction on the outskirts. To eat lunch, we drove out to the ruins of Chan, Chan, the pre-Inca city originally measuring 8 miles square. We were very disappointed as we walked through the broken down walls and courtyards since we couldn't see a trace of the original facade. But when we drove in a little farther with the car, we came to a new reconstruction with an entrance. So we paid our fee and took the guided tour and were amply rewarded with the sight of the intricate carvings and designs in the wall plaster as well as the reconstruction of whole sections of the compound.
It's anybody's guess what all the niches and spaces stand for, and it was fun giving our own suppositions. We were especially impressed by the huge water reservoir still containing water inside the city wall and just a few yards from the ocean.
We left, our imaginations peopled with indians occupied with their daily rounds of tasks, filling the empty houses.
Back into the desert--that cold, bare desert. There is a lot of traffic on this road, and an enourmous amont of crosses along the way. Some 400 up to Trujillo. It's just too narrow for the wide trucks and busses constantly passing, and soft shoulders. We saw a just-happened accident with turned-over car. Another, a truck with flattened cab.
Drove into Chimbote at supper time in time to see a fishermen's demonstration for better pay. You can see the ocean at the end of the city street. The ocean extends inward between mountains in coves. Bought bread, empanadas and milk, and drove out of town for supper. We took off the main road onto a little-used road leading towards public beach. Much to the kids' disappointment, we never arrived. It was too risky for the trailer. So we camped beside the smooth sand and cooked our potato soup while the kids kicked up sand.
Wasn't as cold as last night.