Chiclayo... ruins and gold.

Three hours further up the coast and another group of eroded mud pyramids to see... ho hum you say? Well you wouldn´t if you saw the treasure they´ve pulled out of some of these... absolutely astounding. And the size of the mud complexes such as Tucume with over 22 pyramids is also quite a sight, although rather arid, eroded and unfortunately a lot of it is closed from public access while they are working on it.

At Sipan they discovered 12 royal moche tombs in 1987 filled with offerings... archeologically its been compared with the discovery of Tutenkamen (however you spell that!), and it definitely hit world headlines. There is an awesome museum housing all the treasure, and showing photos step by step as they uncovered layers of ceremonial jewellery, garments and decorations that covered the bodies. Stunning goldwork earings, necklaces and other items, huge beaded collars covering their chest and shoulders and even remains of some cloth and feathers. Unfortuneately no photos allowed so you`ll just have to go visit for yourself! We (me, Grant and Deb) also visited the site itself (about an hour from town) which they`re still working on as can be seen... scraping and gently pulling pottery from the wall when we were there.

We made it to one other museum housing more gold and pottery from the ruins from nearby cultures... This gold mask is from Chimu ruins if I remember rightly.

And Chiclayo was where I said goodbye to the other Aussies and caught a night bus inland.