Intro
The morning in Chancay broke the streak of coastal gloom with a partly cloudy sky, though the air still held a lingering dampness. I started the day in my hotel room with a makeshift breakfast of olive tapenade and crackers, discovering too late that my only apple had turned into a brown, fermented mess that filled the room with a vinegar-sharp stench.
The Scripted Kingdom
- After hiding my heavy gear behind a lobby couch—the staff were nowhere to be found—I walked the cliffs toward the Castle of Chancay. By 9:15 a.m., I was inside for Tour #1, a strange ‘treasure hunt’ through architectural replicas of Europe. It was an exercise in the uncanny; actors stood at various stations, their lips moving in exaggerated sync to pre-recorded narrations blasting from hidden speakers. We followed a map through a miniature Italy and a faux Netherlands, ending in a basement near the pool.
- The ‘treasure’ turned out to be a wine tasting. I took a sip and immediately regretted it; the liquid was thin and aggressively acidic, mirroring the vinegar-sharp stench of the core of my breakfast apple from an hour earlier. It wasn’t exactly a prize, but it set the tone for the eccentricities to come. I moved quickly to Tour #2, which transitioned from a room of Indian artifacts—featuring a guide sitting cross-legged on a ‘floating’ cushion—to a basement filled with the grainy, porous surface of fossilized vertebrae and massive prehistoric skeletons.
The Collector’s Legacy
- The fossil room was the most grounded part of the castle, housing the remains of Archelons and a Tyrannosaurus Rex. The guide pointed out the original bones, distinguishable by their darker, weathered color against the plaster reconstructions. As I was tracing the grainy, porous surface of a fossilized jawbone with my eyes, a man approached me back on the main square. He introduced himself as Klaus.
- Klaus was a German-Peruvian who had spent thirty years living in Germany before retiring early to return to Peru. He wasn’t just a visitor; he was the source of the skeletons I’d just seen. He told me he’d brought his entire private collection back to Chancay to ensure it remained on public display. We spoke in German for a while, a strange linguistic island in the middle of a Peruvian theme park. He seemed content, a man who had spent his life gathering pieces of the past only to give them away so they wouldn’t end up in a private basement. It was a stark contrast to the lip-syncing actors and the kitsch; here was a real person with a real, tangible legacy left in the stone.
Chainsaws and Shellfish
- Before leaving, I paid ten soles for the ‘Casa de Horror.’ The experience was largely a walk through dark, cramped corridors filled with static props, until we reached a room with a figure holding a power tool. I assumed it was another mannequin until we passed it. The silence was shattered by a rasping, mechanical roar as the actor yanked the starter cord. The smell of two-stroke exhaust filled the narrow hallway, and I found myself sprinting away from the genuine vibration of a chainsaw blade. The adrenaline was still pumping when I hit the next room, where a white-sheeted ‘corpse’ on a table served as a distraction for a second actor to burst through a side door screaming.
- I escaped the castle by 11:30 a.m. and found a local fish restaurant to settle my nerves. I ordered a Parihuela, a massive seafood soup that arrived in a bowl large enough to wash a dog in. As I picked through the various shells and the grainy, porous surface of the fish bones, I realized I’d probably over-ordered. I finished the broth, walked back to the Panamericana, and flagged down a Z-Bus. The ride back to Lima was smooth on the paved highway, a dull contrast to the morning’s chaos. I reached Casa Ciclista Callao by 6:30 p.m., greeted by the familiar sight of Fernando and a few other tired cyclists.
Overnight
I’m staying at Casa Ciclista Callao. It’s a legendary hub for bike travelers run by Fernando, providing a much-needed sense of community after a week of solo navigation and strange castle tours.
Reflection
Theme parks in Peru are significantly more aggressive with power tools than their European counterparts.