Back in Time to Wrap it Up
Trip Start
Apr 27, 2009
1
26
Trip End
Aug 11, 2009
Trujillo, Peru
Monday, August 10, 2009
Over the centuries, a variety of peoples have made Peru's northern coast their home. from the time of Christ to 800 AD, the Moche lived along the ocean and made the beautiful ceramics for which they are most famous. Near Sipan, they built enormous adobe brick pyramids for ceremonial purposes and buried assorted important officials in and around these structures. The pyramids still exist today, but being made of adobe, they have eroded significantly with time and now look more like dirt hills in the middle of sugar cane fields. I didn't even realize I had been standing on a pyramid until I read about it several hours later in a museum. Which are the other things Chiclayo has, world-class museums to display the Sipan findings.
I wish Cuzco had something similar, having been generally disappointed with the quality of Cuzco's museums. The only thing I fail to understand is why two excellent museums, built in the last 10 years, and representing significant investments would contain only Spanish signage. Perhaps it's Anglo-centric of me, but it seems that if you wanted to attract tourists, you would have signs in English, and preferably French, too, since they're all over Peru. It can't cost that much to translate signage.
Regardless, I start my day at the Museo de Sitio by the old pyramids, a museum so new, I might add, that it's not in my guidebook. Inside, I am introduced to the history of the Moche people and shown select artifacts from their culture. It's all very interesting without being information overload. You don't get to the point of, oh...look...another case of arrowheads...yawn. I find the ceramics the most interesting. The Moche made small containers in the shape of all sorts of animals and they are so well preserved that I have a hard time at first believing that they are originals. Additionally, the museum does an excellent job of showing how assorted artifacts were made, making them more interesting than just a bunch of old stuff in cases.
Outside, I head over to the tombs where everything was found. Just holes in the ground, really, but the main tombs have been outfitted with replicas to show how they looked when discovered. In the most impressive tomb, the "Lord of Sipan" was found in a wooden coffin surrounded by worldly goods to help him in the next life, as well as three young women and a boy. Placed slightly above the tomb was a guard with his feet cut off to protect the inhabitants from bandits. All in all, close to twenty tombs have been found and as work is on-going, you can wander around and look at both what has been excavated and current projects.
From the Sipan site, I get in my hired taxi and head for the town of Lambayeque and the first Sipan museum. The burial mounds are 30 km southeast of Chiclayo and Lambayeque is 10 km northwest. My bus arrived too late for me to get on the day's tours (if there were any, Chiclayo is refreshingly free of tourists) and public transit to the sites is sparse and purportedly dangerous, as is wandering the sites alone. Add to this that I had no where to store my bag for the day and hiring a registered taxi for $35 (there goes my budget) makes a lot of sense.
Now's as good a time as any to talk about safety in Peru, described by Lonely Planet as "one of the most dangerous countries in South America" (notice how I'm doing this just before I leave?) In addition to opportunistic robberies, the country's buses are plagued by hijackings, particularly on overnight routes. Additionally, taxis sometimes kidnap tourists, taking them to deserted ATMs and making them withdraw cash. But, the country is working towards safety, starting with a real push to get people to wear seat belts - a first for developing countries I've travelled in. Additionally, there are armed guards and police everywhere, as well as more high tech measures. Arequipa had the most of it. The town was filled with papers with tips for tourist safety and getting into a taxi from the from the bus station, I was surprised to find myself being videotaped by a policewoman. She asked for my name and where I was going before videoing the taxi driver and his credentials. This was not done for all Arequipa taxis, but a taxi carrying a lone gringa at night (8pm) clearly seems a good target for heightened security. I was also often videoed (along with other passengers) getting onto buses, and I could never buy a ticket without my name and passport number. If I went missing, the government could quickly track down at least the last town I had been in.
But there remain problems. Arriving in Lima at 7 pm, I proceeded to walk 200 ft from the bus terminal to buy a hamburger and was warned by several people to not go walking about by myself. Later, while walking an extra 500 ft to a busy bus stop, I had a friendly woman worrying up one side and down the other for me. She asked if I was scared, suggesting I should be, and I was a little, but the registered taxi drivers at the station seemed to think I'd be ok on a bus to the airport at 7 pm, and it turns out I was. I'll say this, though, it makes me glad that though I've been through Lima three times, I've never stayed there for more than a few hours.
But back to the story...the Museo Tumbas Reales de Sipan is four times the size of the Museo de Sitio and packed with cool stuff. I stumbled through more Spanish explanations (it's exhausting reading all that information in a foreign language) and appreciated the artifacts: gold, and lots of it. Now we're talking. I had been disappointed in Cuzco at the lack of Inca gold on display. You hear so much about it, and the Spanish couldn't have made off with all the treasure, right? But the Moche make up for the Inca. They musth ave alloyed their gold with copper, because when it was found, it was all green, but it has since been restored to sparkling splendour. I especially enjoyed the large necklaces on display, ten balls of gold shaped into human heads, an octopus necklace with legs spiraling off, a necklace of gold and silver peanuts. Many of these were shown next to photographs of the site where they were found, and it was amazing to see the extent of the restoration work performed. Additionally, there were enormous, intricate gold and turquoise earrings with deer, ducks or the Lord of Sipan on them, and large collars constructed of tiny pieces of spondylus seashell.
The museum kept me occupied for several hours and then it was onto my next destination: the city of Trujillo. I arrived in the dark on a Friday night, without a hotel reservation. I don't like doing that (just like I don't like when the book say it's a two hour bus ride and it's actually four) I found a friendly middle-aged taxi driver (endorsed by a female attendant) and asked him to find me a hotel. We had to try several, but finally found one with a room, though I balked at the $20 price. I haven't paid more than $10 since...well...since I was in Africa. But it was a nice room and it was safe (several good people of Chiclayo had been concerned that I would travel in Trujillo alone) and I reminded myself that when I start paying rent in Edmonton, it will be significantly more than $20 a night.
So what does $20 a night get you in Trujillo? Well, I was a block and a half from the Plaza de Armas, I had a TV with 60+ channels (some in English), tile floors in the bathroom, and no ants (which had been a problem in Huacacina). Unfortunately, $20 a night will not get you a truly hot shower in a Peruvian city of 800,000. That'll have to wait for Washington, DC.
I moved quickly in Trujillo and within an hour of arriving, had a hotel, a tour booked for the next day, and dinner in front of me. In the morning, I lazed about my hotel room and mozied out to meet my tour at 11. I had thought to visit Trujillo's archaeological sites on my own, but again with the safety thing. When I found out that for $8, I could get transport to five sites and a guide for a full day, my mind was made up.
The tour was a Spanish affair (it's been three days since I spoke to anyone in English) with visitors from Lima, Piura (in the north), and Argentina. There was one girl from France. We pretended we didn't speak each other's languages and conversed en Espanol.
Our first stop were the Huacas del Sol y de la Luna, more Moche pyramid-temples. The Huaca del Sol is the largest single Pre-Columbian structure in Peru, but like the Sipan mounds, it has melted away with time and now resembles a muddy hill. The Huaca de la Luna, however, has had extensive excavation work done, revealing centuries-old paintings that used to adorn the temple. Figures of Moche gods as well as various sea creatures are carved into the walls and painted in bold colors. There's something about old paintings that impresses me (Egyptian tombs had a similar effect two years ago when I discovered they had been painted) and I can easily imagine how imposing the temple must have looked thirteen-hundred years ago.
In the afternoon, we visit Huaca Iris, a smaller temple much more thoroughly restored with more paintings, but this time, only hints of color. Huaca de la Luna actually went through several phases and remodelings during its use, meaning old paintings were plastered over, better enabling them to survive until today.
On the drive from Iris to Chan Chan, the three year-old on our tour decides she wants to sit with me and plops down and starts asking questions. First, she proudly declares "Vivo en Lima!" I live in Lima, and then starts with "Porque tienes pelo amarillo?" in a whiny voice. "Why do you have yellow hair?" I reply, "Por que mi madre tiene pelo amarillo." Because my mother has yellow hair. Not good enough. She asks again. I turn the question around. "Porque tienes pelo negro?" Why do you have black hair? She doesn't think she needs to answer and moved onto my eyes, why are they celeste? (light blue) Because God made them that way (neither of my parents have blue eyes and lying to a child seems in poor taste) She seems to accept this and moves on to prattle about other things. I try to ignore the fact that this three-year-old can talk Spanish circles around me.
With the ruins of Chan Chan, the largest adobe city in the world, we move forward several hundred years to the Chimu people. The Moche people, as with most Pacific coast civilizations were victims of dramatic El Nino cycles, which caused torrential rainfalls in their normally desert climate and the ultimate collapse of their empire as their mud cities became water-logged and their crops failed. The Chimu people rose in the Moche's place and were then victims of El Nino themselves several hundred years later and were conquered by the Inca. Their capital was once covered in glittering gold and towering temples, but all that this gone now (the Spanish being especially thorough in search of treasure) and the remains of the city, millions of mud bricks, are slowly melting back into the sand.
That is, of course, with the exception of the Tschundi Complex, which has been extensively restored and redone, to the point of seeming a little fake in places for all its perfection. We visit this enormous section of the town after a whirl through the mediocre Museo de Sitio. Large squares and plazas are adorned with geometric patters, simpler than the Moche but still imposing.
From Chan Chan, we make a token visit to the beach town of Huanchaco. In the low season, it looks like a great place to chill for a few days, if only I had more time! I wander along the shore, ignore the vendors and their tacky souvenirs, and instead look out at the surfers floating in the water. I decide that surfers waiting for waves are a lot like snowboarders at the top of a half-pipe, many people sitting around and very few doing anything actually worth watching.
Back in Trujillo, I spend my last night vegging in front of my spiffy television. I am tired. In the morning, I head for Lima and then on to the US and the end of my international travels.
