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Published: January 24th 2012
We weren’t sure how long we wanted to spend in these Northwestern Peruvian towns. The only thing we heard about Trujillo was that it had two famous pre-Columbian archaelogical sites - Chan Chan and temples of the Sun and Moon. So in the end we just stayed in Trujillo for the day and visited the archeological sites. Coming from Lima, it took us about ten hours on an overnight bus until we arrived and we didn’t get much sleep on the journey. The sleep deprivation must be the reason that the day seems a bit like a blurry dream!
First up Sarah and I grabbed breakfast and much needed coffees close to the town plaza. Across the street we found a place to book the trips to the sites. We were rounded up as part of a group of eight people and put into a minibus that dropped us off first at Chan Chan.
Chan Chan is one of the largest adobe cities in the ancient world and a UNESCO world heritage site. The area covers about 20km and is under continuous archeological work, uncovering new sections and attempting to preserve the site which receives a lot of abuse
from the rain and pacific coastal winds.
Spanish conquistador, Francisco Pizarro ‘discovered’ Chan Chan in the 15
th century although it was constructed by the Chimor civilization around AD 850 and lasted until its conquest by the Incas in AD 1470.
On the way out from the site, we spotted one of the jazziest taxi / rickshaws that we’ve come across – definitely ‘pimped up’ by the owner. Sarah also found another puppy (mental note – Sarah may want a pet when we get back to the states)!
Huancabamba was an unassuming town, a few hours from Trujillo. It was at quite an altitude and the bus journey took us back up through through the mountains for what seemed like much longer than four hours. We enjoyed a relaxing couple of days here just chilling out really and getting to chat with some of the locals. One guy told us about a local Shaman who was apparently famous in the area. A few hours later we got to meet him and ask him about what he did. The Shaman specialized in curing people through herbal remedies including an indigenous cactus called ‘San Pedro’. The guy looked like a
ringer for ‘Cheech’ from Cheech & Chong!
After just a couple of days, we were excited to be going to our next destination – a cool little surf village in Northwest Peru close to the Ecuadorian border. Join us in Mancora….
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