Trujillo- impressive mud ruins

After the Mountains I caught a slightly hair-raising bus through the Canon del Pato down to the coast and the town of Trujillo. (Don´t like the bus rocking from side to side thru potholes when you have a 100m drop down to the river...) But the canyon was spectacular... a bumpy dirt road carved into the mountainside following a river down, with quite a few tunnels cut thru as well. The photo taken out of the window doesn´t do it justice at all, but hopefully gives some idea of the rockiness of countyside.


Trujillo is on the coast, and actually has a quite pleasant colonial centre. But I came to see the ruins nearby... the giant adobe pyramids of the sun and moon, and a whole city/ royal complex known as Chan Chan. The whole area is really sandy and desolate, but with the irrigation pioneered by these ancient people its made fertile to grow sugar cane, asparagus and other crops. I took a tour of the main ruins with Michael, an Englishman running the hostel I stayed at. And I met up with Grant and Deb - an Aussie couple from Cairns who I travelled with for the next few days.

The pyramids are rather big, but still dwarfed by the rocky and apparanently sacred mountain nearby. They´re quite eroded, and at first glance disappointing with the rest of the buildings between the pyramids covered mainly by sand. But get closer to where they´ve excavated in the 90s and you find huge walls decorated with mud shaped and colourful painted people, creatures and symbols... absolutely incredible considering their age.. first 6 centuries AD. The Moche people who built it didn´t leave writing, and whats know is know thru their pottery and now these friezes... it appears the pyramid was a large religious and sacraficial centre. And don´t you just wonder whats under the rest of that sand and adobe brick!



We also visited another Huaca (Arco Iris) which was puzzling... wierd pyrimidal structure with perhaps store rooms only accessable from the top?? Anyway impresive mud decorated walls even if you can´t quite fathom the purpose.

And then on to Chan Chan... the huge city and royal palace of its day, which is now mile of desert with mounds showing where walls and buildings stood and the main highway heading straight through the middle of it. Only one royal complex is open and restored/excavated, but its really different again and interesting with large courtyards, wells and ¨cross¨decorations all over the place, not to forget the squirrel/bird creature either... This site is from another group again.. the Chimu (known for their fine gold work), they were later than the Moche, and surrendered to the Incas in 1471 apparently after years of seige and threats to cut water supplies.

And lastly nearby Trujillo is the coastal town of Haunaco which is known for its reed fishing boats/surfing boats!