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Published: September 24th 2007
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Huacho de la Luna
One of the friezes. Despite the location saying Trujillo we actually stayed in a nearby "surfing town" (as everyone knows we are both a couple of surf-dudes at heart) about five miles from Trujillo.
This was because, having stayed in cities for all of our trip apart from the Galapagos, we fancied a bit of a change and some sea air. It was a good choice; Trujillo looked like most of the other cities... lots of people, lots of taxis, lots of traffic fumes.
Having a day to spare (on Saturday) we took the bus into Trujillo (more of which later), in order to get a taxi to ´Huaco de la Luna´and ´Huaca del Sol´(Temple of the Moon and Sun respectively). These are two temples built by the Moche people between 100 and 700 A.D. The Sun temple is closed to visitors but it was possible to walk around the Moon temple.
It´s fascinating because they built a new temple óver´the last one every time their Priest died. They created colourful friezes (using red, white, yellow, and black paint - the only colours found naturally that they had at their disposal) depicting warriors with snakes for hair, waves for ears, and owl-eyes.
Cute pooch.
A Peruvian dingo. Totally bald except for a tuft on her head. A truly ugly creature. Of course the whole place was covered in sand for 1300 years so it was a strange experience to see these friezes uncovered.
When we get wet weather in England we moan a bit, slag off John Kettley, and go to the pub or the shops. The Moche had a slightly different attitude. They thought that rain was a sign that the gods were unhappy so they sacrified a few unlucky souls - but only men between the ages of 18 and 35. We saw a few dark clouds on the horizon so Jez quickly amended his passport birth date from 1973 to 1963. (As you Loughborough lads already know Jez is really 43). The chaps were stripped naked, had a rope tied round their necks, and left in a pit for two weeks awaiting their fate, whilst being given hallucinogenic drugs to purify them for the gods. On their day of reckoning they were beheaded and the blood that spouted forth from their necks was taken to the Priest to drink.
In the afternoon we visited another local site, Chan Chan, which was a city home to about 100,000 Chimu people for a couple of hundred
Chan Chan
700 years old. The stonework, not the chap. years (1250 to 1450 A.D. roughly) before the Incas conquered them. Again, it was really fascinating to walk around the ruins of the city. Some of the streets and buildings have been restored to how they would have been, and again these feature quite intricate carvings in the mud-bricks, of fish, pelicans, and snakes. The city walls were 9 metres high, and with only one small doorway as an entrance and exit.
Back to the bus into Trujillo. Have you ever wondered what it was like to ride on a school bus in America in the 1950s? Well, this local bus
was a 1950s American school bus. Still on it´s original springs and dampers we think! If Jez had been 6 years old still he might have been able to sit properly, but his knees were under his chin the whole journey! The method of acttracting paying passengers was for the ´conductor´to lean out the side of the bus whenever we passed a pedestrian and shout "TRUJILLO TRUJILLO TRUJILLO!!!" at them while the driver honked his horn at least half a dozen times, just to make sure the people had not missed this wonderful opportunity to take
Piura in northern Peru.
Typical - you wait 30 minutes for a taxi then 25 turn up at once.
The whole town was swarming in these little Daewoo taxis driven by frenzied men with a horn obsession. the Ride of Death to Trujillo.
On the way back into Trujillo from the Temple of the Moon we got into a minibus taxi. This was another interesting ride, as the drivers strategy for filling his minibus, ít seeemed, was to slow down to a crawl and wait for pedestrians to catch him up, or veer off down a dusty side street to see if anyone down there might need a ride to Trujillo.
We had a laugh at one point when the driver decided to reverse on the main road just after a bend, and a tuk-tuk (motorcycle taxi) came zooming round the corner. The way he veered blindly on to the other side of the road to avoid smashing into the back of the minibus was pretty amusing, even though (or maybe because) we were on the back seats.
We ended the day sitting in a beachside cafe drinking beer and eating pancakes whilst watching the locals enjoy life on the beach as the sun started to descend into the sea.
Next stop... Lima ("that is the answer")
Bye for now
Jez and Bridget
xxxxx
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Dawn
non-member comment
Another enjoyable geography lesson, thank you! I think those warrior guys in the frieze are quite cute! So does this mean you wont be moaning about our public transport ever again???!!! Have you ever actually tried it?!