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Published: December 16th 2014
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Lambayeque
Museo Tumbas Reales de Sipan, the only picture I could take... From the outside You could say I have been taking a tour through the ages the last ten days in Peru. Or you could say I have been visiting a lot of dusty ruins, ranging from those barely distinguishable from a heap of sand, to the non-dusty Kuelap. So, if you are not interested in ruins and the like, it is best to skip this blog and concentrate on something more useful.
So, for the two of you who are left, here we go!
Once a long time ago, lets say around 300 AD there were a people who belonged to what is now termed the Moche culture. They had been around for a couple of centuries by that time. Now, if I had been visiting Chiclayo in those days, or better yet, Sipan, I would have run into some huge structures, looking like pyramids but without the pointy top. Some of these would have been temples, and others tombs. Most likely I would have ended up being buried alive in one of those tombs as a trophy for the late king, or perhaps I would have been used as a human sacrifice in one or another religious ritual. There is nothing
Lambayeque
And this is a selection of the artifacts you get to see in the museum. Disclaimer, these are not my pictures, I found them on the internet and cobbled them together in this collage. like a good blond haired, blue eyed bloke to please the gods after all! This would be before, or after I had bumped into the Lord of Sipan in his fancy golden head-dress, nose ring and suit. The man would basically be covered in enough gold to fill a Swiss bank, or in other words he would be shinny as hell and have more bling than a bad rapper.
Fortunately I only arrived on the scene about 1700 years later. The advantage of my late arrival is that I don't have to worry about being sacrificed. The disadvantage is that those massive temples of yore have turned into a heap of dirt, and that the Lord of Sipan is just a bunch of bones surrounded by a lot of gold. He now resides in a nice little museum in Lambayeque, which also has become the home of several other dignitaries of the time, together with all their golden ornaments.
Let's move on, into the mountains for instance. To Chachapoyas. Chachapoyas is not just a town, it is also the name of the people who inhabited the area back in the day when the Moche were doing their stuff
Sipan
That heap of dirt in the background is what was once a mighty temple on the coast. Chachapoyas means 'People of the Clouds', possibly because they lived in the cloud forests. They were a fierce people, and while I might have had a small chance of surviving my encounter with the Moche's, there is little doubt that I would have lost my scalp to the Chachapoyas.
The Chachapoyas liked to build circular structures, and mountain-top city fortresses. Kuelap is one such place, situated on a mountain ridge with fabulous views to all sides. Kuelap has something, to quote my brother, 'Lord of the Ring-ish' to it. Maybe it was the tree and moss covered ruins that created this atmosphere, or the ring-like structures, or the silence that was only broken by twittering birds. Whatever it was, I did half expect Gandalf to pop-up and do wizardry stuff there. Much to my disappointment he didn't actually pop-up. And neither did any Chachapoyas demanding my scalp.
Now, those nasty Chachapoyas lasted quite some time. But eventually the nasty Inca's came along and subjugated them, telling them that scalping was out of fashion. Hardly had the Inca's settled down when the nasty Spanish arrived on the scene, and we all know how that ended for
Sipan
This is the tomb where they found the Lord of Sipan and his treasures. While the tomb is real, the contents are replicas, as the real stuff is in the museum in Lambayeque. the Inca's. Atahualpa, the last Inca Emperor, however didn't know how it would end, but he soon found out. It was in Cajamarca where he was captured, then held for ransom and eventually strangled. But not until he had filled up the 'Ransom Chamber' where he was held prisoner, once with gold, and twice with silver, in return for his release. I guess the word 'release' meant something different to the Spanish than to Atahualpa. You can visit this 'Ransom Chamber' if you are in Cajamarca, it is the only Inca building left in town, and it isn't very impressive, though filled with gold I bet it would be!
I have thus come to the year 1533, the year Atahualpa died, and that is as far as I am going for now. Instead I re-visited the Moche again, because, in retrospect they weren't all that bad. And it seems, some of their temples weathered the storms of times better than those outside Chiclayo. Or maybe these Moche spent less money on dressing up their chief in gold and more on building materials. Huacas del Sol y de la Luna, are two temples, of which the moon temple is the
Sipan
At least there is still somebody making use of that heap of dirt better preserved one. Here you could get a glimpse of what one of their shrines looked like. Colourful!
Not far away, though centuries apart, the Chimu set up their lovely capital, Chan Chan, this was about 1300 AD. Supposedly it is the largest pre-Columbian city in the America's and the largest adobe city in the world. If they were giving out prizes clearly Chan Chan would have taken some away. Despite the large amount of time between the Moche and the Chimu cultures, their kings shared an affinity of insisting on being buried together with a bunch of unsuspecting young girls.
And between Chan Chan and Huacas del Sol y de la Luna, or you could say between the Moche and the Chimu, the Spanish decided to set up their city, Trujillo, after plundering what gold and silver their was to be found in Chan Chan. Obviously. They built a squeaky clean Plaza de Armas full of colourful mansions and churches, the Peruvians have kept it dust free ever since. But I am rambling, lets get back to what is important. Dusty ruins.
Casma, three hours south of Trujillo, houses just such a ruin, in nearby Sechin.
Kuelap
Hill-top city-fortress In 1700 BC whoever built it would not have called it a ruin, but a temple. And they might or might not have had problems with the dust. But what is sure is that they had a serious attitude problem. Had I arrived there in those days as a tourist, the temple would have been the last thing I saw before my head was lobbed off. Or maybe my head would have been lobbed off before even seeing the damned temple. And then they would have boasted about it and immortalized their act by carving it on the temple walls. Very little is known about the Sechin culture, possibly because anybody stupid enough to visit them lost their head.
Now 1700 BC is a long time ago, but for the people who built Caral, near present day Barranca, 1700 BC was far in the future. They did their thing between 3000 and 2500 BC, making them contemporaries with the Egyptians and Mesopotamians. They didn't have to worry about the Sechin or Moche's or Inca's, and certainly not about the Spanish who probably were still living in caves in those days. They did have to worry about dust, especially since
Kuelap
Walls of Kuelap the vacuum cleaner was a long way off. They built some mighty buildings in those days, but never did manage to keep out the dust. After 5000 years it has heaped up a bit, somebody should really do something about it.
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El Eterno Caminante
Greg
Very freakin' awesome...
Really great pics and story as always bud, hope ur enjoying every second of it!! Btw, you have been all over the earth...what has been your favorite continent/country/adventure to date? ...enjoy bro!