Arrival in Piura

It is 1am and I am sitting in my hostel room, about to fall asleep and reflecting upon the day that's just come and gone.

It started with a great breakfast, complete with two fried eggs which made me a little nervous as I am still on the tail end of my current bout of salmonella, but it was kindly prepared and it might seem rude to say no, so I ate it and enjoyed eating it.

In the airport I found myself paying for Peru's most expensive bottle of Inca Cola, not to mention the leaving airport tax that cost more than the taxi fare to the airport, and tryiing but failing to receive a signal while in the airport wifi zone, despite having bought the best wireless receiver for my latop ( that comes with its own crappy one anyway, but thats another issue.

The flight across was complete with its quick trip out across the ocean for some reason, its own inflight snack of crackers and a cake and watching an episode of just for laughs, a series that makes you've been framed seem positively in good taste by comparison, ( one 'gag' had the victim see the grim reaper standing over then in the cctv screen, about as funny as a heart attack or open surgery without the anaesthetic ).

Landing was great as the airport was tiny, with only not so much a arrivals hall, more like a large shed where you can actually see the portiers load up the mini luggage revolver through the plastic wall, all set against a wonderful vista of green bush shrubs on one side and eager taxi drivers out to fleece unsuspecting passengers on the other.

Having already been to Lima, I knew that the taxi driver would try it on and it is funny that they will haggle over a difference of PES 2 for a ten minute taxi fare, PES 2 being about 30p to me, and I almost didn't bother to haggle except that they must want to haggle seing as the always set their prices up so high from the off.

The taxi ride was nice and not too bumpy, especially as the driver would slow to almost a complete halt before each and every bump or crack in the road. It is funny that in my travels I have noticed that taxi drivers are either totally paranoid about the road or the complete opposite and treat their vehicles with a lack of respect that as a passenger is freightening. Luckily for me my hostel was more a 2 star hotel than a hostel and my room is fairly well furnished and decorated when compared to other places I have seen in poor small South American towns and villages.

It was kind of fun to check in, as while I was waiting a slender young female came knocking on the hostel door, and after being let in had a nice long debate with the owner about whether she should be allowed up into the rooms or not, as she said she was in a room with a single guy waiting for her but the room number she gave was occupied by three women travelling together. I couldn't make up my mind if she was an opportunist thief, an opportunist hooker, a bit of both or a hooker that had arranged to meet a guy in his room but had memorised the wrong room number.

My room had the nice cool tiled flooring effect, that makes your feet hard and dirty but is very easy to mop up in the mornings, and some plug sockets that only seem to work if you work really hard at pushing the plugs into the socket as hard as you possibly can.

The walls of the rooms are thin enough for me to hear my neighbouts enjoying themselves quite a lot, and through the grilled open window I chanced to spot a nice little lizard crawl all over the outside of my window, that was until I opened the window to get a clear shot with my camera. Thankfully the red anti-glare beam didn't scare the little guy away and I got a couple of good shots before I closed the window and let him continue on his was unmolested.

Grabbing the hotels only decent map, I made my way the ten blocks down to the bus terminal, passing the three wheeled taxiettes that were whizzing about at 10 miles an hour or parked so close to each other that it was impossible to pass between any two. The cashier said that he understood a little English, and with my recent practices I could understand a bit of what he was saying, however he seemed intent on using hand guestures to explain everything and repeat himself at least four times, even though I usually got it after the second and told him so, even repeating it back to him a couple of times.

On my way back to the hostel I passed a night club called Relax, which advertised itself as a huge womens face right across the double doors and a red lips above the door. The place itself is fairly close to my hostel, but to get there I would either have to take a cab or walk the five minutes along some rather sandy and ill lit side roads, which I am not too keen on doing, so I have decided to give it a miss.

Just before I reached my hostel I stopeed to but a huge bottle of pepsi and a couple of bananas, mainly to break a PES 10 note, the smallest note there is, so I was a little surprised when even at 3pm the cashier had to run next door for change.

Back in my room I was able to bash out a few quick emails before running downstairs to send them, as my room does not have a good enough intenet signal to send it, and then went back up to see Oceans 13 in English on HBO, after handing over my washing to be laundered. All except for the single sock that had fell halfway down the stairs, why is it that that always seems to happen to me?!?

My hostel is on one of the main strips in Piura, aledgely along for the shops and local cinema, and directly opposite is a Chinese restaurant that opened after about 5pm. Following the advice of only go where there are loads of locals, I felt sure that I was chosing wisely when my table for one was right at the very back of the place, the only table that was currenly unoccupied, and right next to the fride and kitchen.

For a tiny sum of about PES 19 I was able to buy the largest plate of rice that I have ever seen, along with a huge plate of chicken curry and a Inca cola, seing as I had previously noticed that it was what all the locals were drinking. My one order would easily have fed me three times over and I thought for a second that I had somehow mis-ordered the family sized portions, that was until I saw the plate that came for the table next to me that drwarfed mine by comparison. I guess I managed about half, being the greedy glutton that I was feeling and thought that the rest would be dumped in the garbage for tramps to feed off for the next few days, when instead they came back with my bill and the remains in a takeaway box.

Back in my room I decided to look over the tour guide brochures til it was bedtime, however it was so hot that I could not sleep and so back on came the television. At 1am it amused me to find that although there was meant to be a couple of adult channels that they were scrambled, however the 5 religious channels were all clear as were the other sixty for sport, news, film and at least a dozen mail order shopping channels, not to mention a couple of really dodgy japanese films ( one being abad manga cartoon ).

Finaly, before I managed to drift off to sleep for the last time tonight ( this morning ) I look about my bed to see that there is a familar painting of a young man and a female youth clad only in a whispy veil of see through silk covering her complete nakedness.

Yes, all in all today I like Piura a lot. It has got enough familary concepts and themes that even before I was unpacked I felt somehow comfortable and not at all like a stranger in a strange land. I just hope that I still feel as relaxed and at ease when I go investigating on the city tour tomorrow.