Trujillo, Peru 🇵🇪
I am very excited about today, as I am visiting the ruins of Chan Chan. These have been on my list since I started planning this trip. I am taking a tour that visits a few significant sites in the area as well as Chan Chan. First stop today is an artisional workshop where they show the traditional Moche pottery process. Taking clay from beneath the sand and firing it in a rudementary kiln. We reach the museum that explains in more detail the Moche period of 50AD to 850AD along with artefacts found whilst excavating Huaca de la Luna. These objects are incredible, so detailed and beautiful by today’s standards. The Moche people really valued craftsman so the pottery is exquisitely made and decorated with faces and significant motifs.
In the base of the Cerro Blanco, we find the Huaca de la Luna. The moon temple of the Moche people that was only used for religious ceremonies and sacrifices. They buried significant people here with artefacts now in the museum, but also built temples on top of temples so there are four discovered here. The place is fabulous, colourful decoration still vibrant so you can imagine how beautiful and revered the temple would have been. The Huaca del Sol is across from this temple and this was where general and professional people lived. The period of rule by the priests at the Luna temple ended during El Niño, when no amounts of sacrifices could stop the natural disasters and thus people stopped believing in the priests.
After a huge traditional lunch of duck with rice we leave for the Temple of the dragon. This is a site similar in style to Chan Chan but with huge restored motifs that display dragons and rainbows. I get chatting to Diego, who is keen to practice his English and becomes my new translator. On route to Chan Chan our driver is stopped by the police for not having a valid license to drive the vehicle, fortunately Luis works with the police department and flashes his badge, asks them to allow us to continue as we have tourists from other countries. Amazingly they allow us to continue instead of arresting our driver, and with breakneck speed we squeeze into the gates of the Chan Chan site before they close the barrier for the day.
Chan Chan, the largest city of the pre-Columbian era in South America spanned an area of 20square kilometres. Chan Chan is located in the mouth of the Moche Valley and was the capital of the Chimor empire from 900 to 1470, when they were defeated and incorporated into the Inca Empire. When the Spanish conquered the Incas, they founded the city of Trujillo and Chan Chan was ignored except for treasure hunters, until the slow restoration process started in 1969 and continues today.
It is amazing that a structure this old, built using sand, grit and water has survived. The main walls narrow at the top to ensure stability and still reach 12metres in parts only loosing a couple of metres to natural erosion. Chan Chan was built near the sea as Chimor people believed the sea created all living things and based their motifs on sea creatures. The area is vast and parts still have great definition. It is incredible to be able to walk around rooms and along streets as they would have.
The central plaza was purely ceremonial and you can imagine the atmosphere as the priests adorned in gold decorations stood on the far platform making sacrifices whilst the general observers were only permitted to line the sides. The empire was very elitist with the priests having highly decorated chambers, whereas the craftsman and fisherman would be housed in nominal structures outside of the main section.
We leave Chan Chan via road and can still see big parts of it yet unrestored as we head to the fishing village of Huanchaco. This is a big surf destination now but they still use the Totora reeds to make fishing boats as the chimu people did. The boats called Totora cabillito make a nice foreground to a great sunset.
