Huacas del Sol and de la Luna
Big tour day! We started out heading for Huacas del Sol and del la Luna or Temples of the Sun and the Moon. They are two Moche pyramids built by the Moche people of northern Peru way back in the period between 100AD and 800AD. Huacas del Sol was the largest manmade structure in the western hemisphere, at 45m high consisting of seven levels but today only about one third remains and it is not open to the public. When the Spanish arrived in 1532 in search of treasure and gold they destroyed most of it unfortunately.
Huacas de la Luna though is very well preserved despite the Spaniards best efforts at ruining it. Very little attention was paid to Huacas de la Luna until the 1990's and now there is a full time team of archeologists there working to uncover more of the temple and conserve what they have already uncovered. They were making some of the bricks when we were there (see my pics), which takes them days! They still mad ethem the traditional way, leaving them to dry in the sun. The workers there were incredible, we were so tired after just walking about but they were literally running with wheel barrows full of stones! There are several layers to the temple each still has amazing colourful motives on the walls. They were built up over time and many remodellings were done so they are uncovering new things as they go. As they have been covered from the sun and weather they have been preserved remarkably well. If you want to read a bit more about it have a look at this link: http://www.huacas.com/. I have uploaded my pictures from this so check them out. We also encountered the hairless Peruvian dog! Its body temp is over 40 degrees and was believed to help cure pneumonia and asthma etc by having the patient hug the dog when they sleep! It feels like a big bit of perished rubber but they are quite expensive and rare and the Peruvian government has given one to each archeological site in Peru!
Chan Chan
After the tour we headed over to the largest adobe city in the world...Chan Chan. Just like the Huacas, Chan Chan was made from sun dried bricks and as I just mentioned, it is the largest city in the world of this kind. It was built in the Chimu period between 800AD to 1470AD who were conquered by the Incas. It is a really baron landscape and it was strange how close it is to the normality of Trujillo. We began our tour in one of the main squares (there are 9 huge compounds we went around the one which is open to the public) which was believed to be open to the masses as well as the kings. There they had ceremonies and entertainment there. There wer every long corridors connecting rooms and most of the small rooms only had one entrance/exit. Everywhere was decorated with reference to either fishing, the sea or tide/currents or the moon. It was evident how important the sea and fishing was to them. The most common motive was a hatched pattern which represent the fishing net. I have pictures of the decorations if you want to look. There were also tombs were the Chimu kings were buried with their treasure and there were graves beside them were their wives were buried. After stolling around the arid rooms we then encountered a fresh water lake or walk in well. The guide said they only had to dig 4m down to get the water and also said until 1998 the city of Trujillo itself got its water by irrigating the ground. Now though they take there water from a mountain source in an effort to restore the water table. Chan Chan was an incredible site and although it lacked the colours of the Huaca de la Luna I enjoyed it more as the scale of the place and the views were great. We saw another hairless Peruvian dog then headed off to Huanchaco beach again for food before heading back for a deserved rest!
P.S I have added a few entries in prior to this that you may not have read as I have been catching up!
