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We arrived in Trujillo bright and early (7am) and whilst at the bus terminal deciding on our accommodation we were "greeted" by the usual predatory taxi drivers. After mentioning our choice of hostel he informed us that this was not a good place to stay and that he had a much better option. After offering his suggestion he promptly disappeared...strange, but we were glad of a little peace so thought nothing of it as Lonely Planet is often way off the mark when it comes to classifying accommodation. Anyway, before long another cabbie appears and after offering our second choice he tells us that this place no longer exists - hang on a minute, there´s a pattern developing here!!
Realising that we would get nowhere with our choices we agreed to go with the second cabbie and loaded our stuff in to his cab. We then drove all of 50 metres where he dropped us off at the hotel which he had not more than 5 minutes earlier stated was "very central". Bearing in mind the bus terminal is on the edge of town this place must be either very small or the cabbie´s lying........I wonder which?!
Nonetheless,
Huaca de la Luna
Partially excavated external temple wall. we checked in and to be fair it was a nice place. We'd had very little sleep on the bus overnight so decided to get a few hours shut-eye - and ended up waking about 2.30pm. Feeling a bit peckish we decided to take a walk to the city centre, stopping by the tourist office for the usual info, then to find a cafe for a bite to eat.
Well we didn´t take in to account the fact that the city of Trujillo completely shuts down every Saturday afternoon so nothing seemed to be open. However, whilst walking around for a while we stumbled on what seemed to be the only tour operator open and arranged a tour to the local sites of Huaca del Sol & Huaca de la Luna and Chan Chan for the following day.
With little else to do we found a little place to have lunch, however with the menu only listing 3 items in Spanish we didn´t have much of an idea of what we´d get. Lets just say this place was the most unhygienic place ever, serving the most unappetizing food you have ever tasted - Revolting!! So it was a
Huaca de la Luna
Partially excavated walls from two different periods showing how they were built over each other. case of "La cuenta, por favor" & vamos out of there!!!
Having not had a great first impression of Trujillo we decided that we may as well use the rest of the afternoon to find out about buses going to our next destination. Having been told which bus companies to try, we headed to one of the offices and booked ourselves on a bus leaving the following evening.
With everything arranged, we headed back to the hotel for a wash up before going out to find something better to eat for dinner (which we found in a very good restaurant called the Chelsea Pub!). On returning to the city centre again, we were also surprised to discover all the shops had opened again and the town was heaving with people!
The following day we headed back to the tour agency to meet our guide for the day. After a small delay, and a short walk, we joined the minibus and the rest of our group - a monther and son from Lima.
Our first stop on route to the Huaca de la Luna was a small craft shop where they had original specimens of pottery from
the Moche and Chimu periods (0-700 AD and 1000-1470 AD). The guide explained that because the area has not been developed is it not uncommon for people to still find artefacts whilst digging the foundations for their house!
Anyway, we swiftly moved on to Huaca de la Luna - an enormous pyramid shaped temple built using absolutely millions of adobe mud bricks. The Moche built the original temple around 700 AD, but when something of great significance occurred they would rebuild the temple, each time building over the previous temple's walls! Archeaologists have found evidence that they did this at least 5 times! Each layer is decorated quite elaborately, and it's amazing to see that in certain areas these decorations have remained almost completely intact.
The whole complex of the Huaca de la Luna is huge, including a sacrificial stage and a pit below where the bodies would end up, a main square where the priests would have addressed the townspeople and several rooms where offerings would have been made to the gods.
The views from the top of the Huaca de la Luna are quite specatacular too as you can still see a lot of the
Huaca de la Luna
Partially excavated Temple square. layout of the old city that surrounded the temple plus the Huaca del Sol in the distance - another temple, thought to be even older than the Huace de la Luna, which is still being excavated.
Having spent the morning at Huaca de la Luna it was time to return to Trujillo for lunch. Here we were taken to a very touristy restaurant where the food wasn't great but we were treated to some traditional dancing, which was quite enjoyable.
With lunch over it was back in the minibus - this time with a different group - and we headed out from the city in the opposite direction to Huaca Arco de Iris ( the Rainbow Temple) and Chan Chan. The Huaca Arco de Iris is a much smaller temple with adobe mud walls decorated with a repeated dragon and rainbow design. Apart from the decorated walls there wasn't really much else to see so we headed on to the ruins of the city of Chan Chan.
Chan Chan is thought to be the palace and surrounding buildings of a Moche king. It's a huge area of adobe walls marking out various rooms, offices and courtyards. Behind
the main ruins archaeologists also found the tomb of someone with a high ranking stature, possibly a king, buried with 30 bodies thought to be servants.
Our final stop for the day was the seaside village of Huanchaco, where fishermen row out through the surf in their tortora canoes to make their daily catch.
With only a 30 minute stop in Huanchaco we were soon back on the minibus and heading back to Trujillo, where we picked up our bags from the hotel and headed to the bus station to catch the nightbus to our next destination, Mancora.
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