The Monument Baggers

Well Claires Mom (Pat) arrived as planned in Lima airport and this is an account of what we did next which will particularly interest the archaeologically minded amongst you…(you know who you are!)

After a day acclimatising, recovering and eating churros (lovely caramel, chocolate and crème filled doughnut sticks) in Lima we thought it high time that Pat got to discover what this travelling lark is like first hand.

As we boarded our bus to Trujillo we were excited by our 8-hour journey up the PanAmerican highway ahead. How wrong could we be? Hundreds of kilometres of sand dunes and chicken farms with nothing but desolate landscapes in between punctuated by fishy smelling towns along the route!

8 hours on a bus and 30 mins in a taxi later we arrived in Huanchaco, a bay on the northern coast of Peru. We spend a lovely 3 nights here taking in the archaeological sites and watching the surf roll in.

Huanchaco is popular with monument baggers and travellers alike and attracts surf dudes from around the world who come to surf the biggest left hander in the world.

Our first day was spent at the Chimu citadel of Chan Chan a vast area of crumbling mud walls that mark the largest mud brick pre-Columbian city in the Americas (I thought Bolivia was the land of superlatives, but they are all at it!) containing 10,000 structures. It was amazing.

Day two saw us jumping on local buses (old American school bus type things) and micros to get to Las Huacas del Sol y Luna. After Chan Chan, I was expecting these to come a distant second but these temples blew us away. Huaca del Sol is Peru´s largest pre- Columbian structure (I did warn you!) and belong to the Moche period. These guys had a habit of burying old temples under new ones every 100 years and the result is that they are wonderfully preserved.

Day 3 saw us go to Arco Iris the rainbow temple which was covered in sand until 40 years ago and which has preserved its rainbow designs and ceremonial ramps.

Not content with all this monument bagging we set off for another 4 hours north on a bus to Chiclayo to see the Sipan Museum. This place was amazing, I have never seen so much gold and treasure all found in the tomb of Lord Sipan himself, well worth the trek to get there.

By now we deserved a break and some r and r in the mountains, trouble is they are about 12 hours away by bus, poor Pat. So we jumped on a bus back to Trujillo where we punctuated our journey with a stop off for dinner before getting an overnight bus to Huaraz in the Cordillera Blanca in the Andes.

We chose an Italian style restaurant and could barely eat our food for laughing at the spelling errors in the menu; 'Jumbled eggs', 'eggs shown to the glass' and the best by far ´prostate of the 3 milks´ anybody?!

Unfortunately all of the best bus lines were already booked up so we took our chance on a dodgy looking outfit and booked our seats for our 8 hour overnighter. As luck would have it the bus was OK, but the sound system and video couldn’t be used. This is a huge blessing as those of you who have ever travelled on a bus in South America will know!

We arrived at 5.30 am in Huaraz at 3200m and promptly went to bed to recover. The next day we awoke to stupendous view of the mountains most over 5700m high with snow capped peaks all around and enjoyed taking breakfast on the roof of our hostal with this view for the next 3 days. Read Simon´s blog on his hikes for more pictures of the area.

Unfortunately this prime trekking and climbing region is also prone to avalanches precipitated by earth tremors and as we found out on a trip (by coach of course!) around the region whole towns have been engulfed and killed by these in the recent past.

Pat and Claire left Simon in the hills to go on a hiking trip whilst we went monument bagging again, this time to Nazca. After another mind numbing trip down the PanAmerican Highway we arrived in Nazca and spent another night laughing at menu translations whilst being treated to Criolla dancing.

Next day dawned bright and early for Pat at 7.30 with a promise of an early flight by cesna plane over the Nazca lines leaving us in good time to catch our 13.30 coach (of course) back to Lima. Unfortunately there is a coastal fog prevalent at this time of year and this was being particulary persistent on that day. Eventually the fog burned off and Pat took off at 12.30!

Nazca has been a fascination of Pat´s since she read about them in her sister´s Encyclopaedia Britannica 55 years ago, so this has been a long awaited flight to say the least! What was her verdict ´ I absolutely loved them´. Well thank god for that.

Back to Lima for Pat to start her tour of Peru! (she was supposed to be coming to Bolivia to visit us there but no matter as all the things she will do on her tour are new to her) and said a tearful goodbye on the steps of the archaeological museum. 8 months isn’t that long is it?

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