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Published: September 15th 2013
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Moche iconography
Jonel wants a tattoo of The Decapitator god... Chiclayo may not be the prettiest place in Peru but it has some good things going for it and you can spend a happy weekend there. For me the highlight has to be the Museum Tumbas Reales del Senor de Sipan, the climate and the friendly people – it’s ‘the city of friendship’ no less.
To set the scene, Chiclayo is large commercial desert city (the country’s fourth most populous - 650,000 inhabitants) in northern Peru. There are plenty of hotels and restaurants, cinemas, malls and good transport links. It’s 17 km from the coast and is sunny for most of the year.
I stayed there with my boyfriend for two weekends as it was a convenient meeting point between Peru (where he lives) and Ecuador (where I was living – well, only a 24 hour bus ride away!). Both times we stayed at a basic, cheap hotel Hotel Real, which was clean and quiet and in a good central location. The owners are old and kooky, but sweet, or drunk! depending on the night.
So, Senor de Sipan; it’s the best museum that I’ve been to in South America. The museum is actually about a 40 min
bus ride to another town called Lambayeque. It houses the contents of the Lord of Sipan’s tomb and a recreation of what the tomb was like when unearthed in 1987, luckily untouched by looters, unlike many others. The Lord's tomb, which is around 1,700 years old, also contained two women, a dog, a guard and two llamas, and a LOT of pottery and jewellery – all to serve him in the afterlife. The Senor was part of the Moche civilisation who were renowned for their pottery and metal work. The jewellery is impressive and The Senor makes BA Baracus look positively drab. We particularly liked the golden giant peanut necklace and the massive nose plates, though you’d need a neck like a rugby prop to wear them. The pottery depicts the Moche gods/icons like the crab god and the decapitator (they were into human sacrifices) and many more.
Tumbas Reales is a new museum with a great layout and lighting. The displays were only in Spanish but I heard that you can hire an English speaking guide. What I love about South American museums in general is that they are never crowded. You can see the main exhibits without
having to wait around. There’s also the tomb of the sacerdote ‘priest’ and a big diorama of The Lord, The Priest and their entourage – it was all very Night at the Museum. There are gift shops and you can have a photo with a real live Moche – why not, we’re tourists!
The museum is quite a distance from the actual excavation site, which we also visited. As well as the tombs there’s another museum where you can see footage of some of the excavation work, it’s painstaking stuff. It literally took years to unearth the tombs, with archaeologists lying across boards and working with brushes and pipets to blow away debris without damaging the contents. You can see a lot more pottery and handle some replicas and again dress up like a Moche for photos hehe.
The other archaeological site that we visited was Tucume in the Valley of the Pyramids. It took a while to get there, I think about an hour and a half from Chiclayo. You take a bus and then a moto taxi passing through the sugar cane fields. There’s a small museum, made in a traditional construction style that looks like
Pots. pots, pots
You can see about 10,000 more... pretty good for 1,700 years old a whale’s skeleton, which explains what life would have been like during the time of the pyramids. The walk up to the pyramids is hot and dusty but at the top you get extensive views of the valley with all the 250 pyramids and the sugar cane fields. The pyramids are eroding away so don’t expect Cairo-esque constructions, but you can see the forms and if you look closely you can see the shapes of the bricks. One day the pyramids will have totally disappeared so you’d better to go sooner rather than later…
In Chiclayo city itself you’ll be firmly back in the modern world. We caught a breakdancing display and hung out in the main square. We also had to eat the city’s number one export - a desert called king kong - a biscuit, dulce de leche and fruit puree layered desert. It’s very sweet but good and best consumed with a coffee in my opinion. It’s the compulsory souvenir buy for anyone that visits, and I brought some to share with my Ecuadorian buds. There’s also a park with the parade of the muses - statues of Greek gods – a surprising find and a
nice spot to relax.
The nearest beach is Pimental; we took a local bus from the centre for about 40 minutes. The weather wasn’t so seasidey that day but we took a windy walk along the pier to watch the fishermen in their reed boats and the waves swirling around below. We had lunch in one of the many restaurants, sharing a ray omelette (very tasty – sorry ray) washed down with Inca Cola – truly Peruvian. On a sunny day the beach would be nice – big and wide. It’s a family place with not a dreadlock or hammock in sight.
One place we didn’t get to see was the witches market ‘Mercado de Brujas’. It’s the biggest in Peru and you can meet the shamans who will cleanse you of evil spirits etc., apparently this sometimes involved being tickled by armadillos… If I come back to Chiclayo I’m going there!
So there you have it. A great place for some impressive ancient history, a famous desert to replenish energy lost from traversing all those archaeological sites 😊
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