Trujillo in the sun

I am so glad we came back to Trujillo in its
summer. In the sun it is a beautiful, colourful city with lots of outdoor life. The buildings in the main square look fabulous and the parks are ablaze with lush tropical flowers and verdant trees laden with red flowers. The evenings are warm and full of people taking the air and eating ice cream.

Volkswagen Beetles are one of the most common private cars here, old style obviously. Once you've started to notice them you see the variety - from the worked hard and uncared for (one headlight, missing glass in the windows, peeling paint), via the well loved to the souped up versions with alloy wheels, spoilers, metallic paint and tinted windows and big sound systems. I think I'd rather be a well loved one.

Thinking about transport, we also took the opportunity to go and see the famous Caballos de Paso (Peruvian Pacing Horses) as Trujillo is one of the major centres of breeding. The hacienda/stables were obviously once very grand but now a bit faded. According to the trainer they once had 70 horses there but now "just" the 14. They still breed actively and we saw their stallion and some of his offspring. The trainer demonstrated the horse to us with a chestntut mare, the breed's action is spectacular and showy with a very high knee action when the horse is trotting. It was a really interesting morning and I'm surprised the tour operators and guide books don't make more of it. Even better would have been to have seen a competition with all the showiest equipment and flashy costumes but unfortunately we left before the weekend when there was one.