On the Road Again
Gina. Lima, Peru.
We´re already sick of Lima again. It´s just not our town. We´ve been staying in Miraflores this time around (instead of the center) and while it´s nicer and calmer it´s still just not really our kind of place. It´s just so dreary here. We walked around yesterday and visited the SAE clubhouse in Lima, had our 4th of July feast, and went to the ocean. And now we´re done. We´ve got a bus ticket for tonight leaving at 10 pm for Trujillo. It should be about an 8 hour bus ride up the coast, so we´ll get there bright and early. The plan is to find a hostel in Huanchaco which is a short taxi ride away and supposedly a calmer, smaller place to stay. The draw here is that it´s farther north up the coast, so closer to Ecuador, and they have good surfing and some neat sounding archeological sites, including the city of Chan Chan. According to wikipedia:
The largest Pre-Columbian city in South America, Chan Chan is an archaeological site located in the Peruvian region of La Libertad, five km east of Trujillo. Covering an area of approximately 20 km², Chan Chan was constructed by the Chimor (the kingdom of the Chimú), a late intermediate period civilization which grew out of the remnants of the Moche civilization. The vast mud city of Chan Chan was built between c.850 and c.1470 and was the imperial capital until Chimor was conquered by the Inca in the 15th century. It is estimated that 30,000 people lived in the city of Chan Chan.
The city is composed of ten walled citadels which housed ceremonial rooms, burial chambers, temples, reservoirs and some residences. Each of these citadels has a rectangular configuration with a north-facing entrance, high walls, and a labyrinth of passages.
The walls themselves were constructed of adobe brick, and were then covered with a smooth surface into which intricate designs were carved. There are two styles of design present in these carvings: one is a ‘realistic’ representation of subjects such as birds, fish, and small mammals; and the other is a more graphic, stylized representation of the same subjects. While earlier civilizations concentrated on feline and anthropomorphic forms, the Chimú style shows a preference for maritime motifs. The carvings at Chan Chan depict fish, pelicans, and nets for catching various sea creatures. Chan Chan, unlike most other coastal ruins in Peru, is located extremely close to the Pacific Ocean.
Chan Chan was added as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1986. The city is severely threatened by erosion from El Niño, which causes heavy rains and flooding on the Peruvian coast. Present-day visitors to Chan Chan can enter the Tschudi Complex, believed to be one of the later citadels built in the city. There are also several other Chimú and Moche ruins in the area around Trujillo.
So we´ll see some neat ruins and maybe take a surfing lesson or two, then keep heading north to Ecuador. Hopefully there will be some good photo opportunities in our future as Lima is so dreary it doesn´t lend itself to pictures (although I did talk Steve into going to a Dunkin Donuts today where I took a picture of him eating his first Dunkin Donut ever, and then another picture of him feeling a bit sick afterwards! There are a lot of American stores around Lima, including the first McDonald´s that we´ve seen–we´ve seen tons of KFCs, though. They´re crazy about their chicken in Peru!).
Tags: Peru
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