Huanchaco, Peru...back to the beach

Hello everyone!
We are in Huanchaco, Peru now. It is just outside of Trujillo (roughly eight hours north of Lima). It is nice to be back on the beach even if this beach town is different from the last one we visited (Puerto Lopez, Ecuador). The water is much colder but that has not stopped us from getting in it. We are staying in a nice family run hostal that has kitchen so we have been doing alot of cooking. This is a nice change of pace. It sounds ridiculous, but we get tired of eating in restaurants all the time.

Everyone in Huanchaco has been super friendly. Everyone wants to chat with us and we have made plenty of new friends/contacts. We played soccer and freeze tag on the beach with some locals. Freeze tag was a blast. I miss that game so much. Another guy invited us to his art show...and of course we went. His paintings were super cool. I wish I could have bought one but there is no way that it would fit in my backpack during the rest of our trip.

Speaking of new friends...our German friend Lena has left us. She had to continue on to Lima. We hope that we can meet up with her again before she leaves Peru. But if not, maybe in a few years in her country...why not?

It has been a little difficult adjusting to the currency change here. They use Soles here. Every three Soles is roughly a dollar. There have been many times that we see something on a sign and say "jeez, that cost six dollars?" and then we have to remind ourselves that it is actually more like two dollars. Hopefully, we will get quicker/better at doing the math.

So, the highlight of Huanchaco has been surfing. I have never surfed before. Katie and I (Hallye) signed up for an eight o' clock surf lesson this morning with Juan Carlos, a local instructor. We were both a little nervous but very excited. We met at his surf shop and practiced the motions of standing up on the board. At this point, I was like "I got this. It won't be too bad. " And I was wrong. When we got in the water, I was a complete klutz. He would push our board and help us catch the wave....and then I would fall off. It seemed to take me ten falls for every successful time (which was only two or three). On the other hand, Katie was a natural. She even came back later today and took the board out again to get in some extra practice.

I look forward to reading comments later. Love, Hallye