Piura - Peru

A city in Peru coastal semi-desert town - hot, dusty and dirty. Except for area around main square not worth spending time in. Piura is a city in northwestern Peru. It is the capital of the Piura Region[1] and the Piura Province. The population is 377,496.

It was here that Spanish Conqueror Francisco Pizarro founded the third Spanish city in South America and first in Peru, San Miguel de Piura, in July 1532. Like most of northern Peru, the territory of Piura has been inhabited by their autochthonous group of natives called tallanes and yungas. These lived without an organization or single leader to rule until the Muchik culture eventually took control, and the mixture of these evolved into the Vicús culture. Centuries later, Piura came under the rule of Tupac Inca Yupanqui for at least 40 years, and before the Spanish arrived. ot With the arrival of the Spanish in 1532, the current mestizo and creole cultures of Piura were born. This mestizo culture includes influences from Spanish Extremadura and Andalucia, African influence due to the arrival of slaves from Madagascar (Malgache slaves), the Chinese coolies that migrated from Canton to work the rice fields and replace the slaves; and also Roma Gypsies who came as pirates looking for pearls or incognito as Spanish horsemen.

The Spanish named the city from the Quechuan word, pirhua, meaning abundance. Nowadays, Piura is known as the “Ciudad del eterno calor” meaning “The city of the eternal heat” because it is hot all year round. Piura

Piura

I have learned to avoid vans because they tend to stuff too many people in. However El Dorado Bus Line could not change a 50 Soles bill for me (??) and so I went one block over to Sertour Vans. I got stuffed in the middle in the last row of the van between two overweight people. With my 210 pounds we travelled in hot weather for four hours with elbows in ribs. Unless you scream the do not stop for bathrooms.