Our travel plans

So we leave Phoenix tomorrow morning heading back to South America, but this time we will fly into Guayaquil, Ecuador instead of to Lima.  It is still summer vacation in Peru, so classes don't resume again until early March, and we thought we would use the extra time to see some of Northern Peru, which is supposed to be interesting.  Guayaquil is much closer to Northern Peru, as you can see in this map:

 

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Guayaquil is on Gulf of Guayaquil, about the southern third of the country.

From Guayaquil, we will head south along the coast, cross the border into Peru, and continue south.

 

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Our first stop will be Tumbes, which is just about an hour over the border from Ecuador.  There are apparently some cool mangrove swamps and other natural attractions.  After a few days there, we will head to Máncora, which is on the coast between Tumbes and Piura, and too small to make the map above.  It is a beach town that is quite popular in the summer, especially for surfing, but we will probably just enjoy the water and the seafood!

From there, we will go to Chiclayo, on the coast south of Piura, which has a lot of interesting ruins.  Then we will head inland to Cajamarca, which is where the Spanish conquistadores met and captured the Inca king. After that, we will go to Trujillo, which is an old colonial city and also has its share of pre-Incan ruins to visit.

From Trujillo, we will continue south to Lima, go visit Pisco to catch up with the family that JP and the Brophy Peru trip has worked with the past two years, and see what happens from there.  We expect to return to Tacna roughly the first week in March. 

We will do our best to keep updating the blog with our travel adventures as we go, and will catch up if needed once we are back in Tacna.  Enjoy!