Huanchaco is a twenty minute ride out of Trujillo. It’s drab and grey this time of year, the grey waves barely distinguishable from the dull sky that appears to either be heavy fog or pollution, either way it doesn’t sport a wrinkle, a streak, even a blip of blue sky. Coupled with the sparse desert vegetation barely dotting the tan sand, it’s almost ominous.
The main attractions are Chan Chan, Moche, reed fishing boats and apparently, surfing. I didn’t see anyone so much as put a toe in, let alone a boat or board. The waves do roll for ages surging into the bay, running sideways to the beach in front of our favourite cafe for ages towards the north end of the strip of town buildings.
Chan Chan is an extensive collection of mud brick walls that used to hold up roofs over palaces, over 200 storage rooms, royal chambers and administration buildings for the local pre-Incan culture. The walls, floors, fishing net styled carvings and restored fish, pelican and cormorant motifs are all the same sand colour and it would be easy to get lost in the rabbit warren of walls – some restored to their full 13-15 metre height. It’s also a dazzling discovery to turn the corner and see the deep reed-filled water hole fed by a natural spring the people used for all their water needs. Just as well they discovered the water table as it’s pretty much a desert here.
The restoration is like most of the projects I’ve seen on my travels – only so much as can be maintained and enough to get the tourists in. A lot of work has gone into reconstructing the walls, maintaining the passageways and restoring the buildings to a level that can educate visitors about the culture including placing fiberglass reproductions of sections over the real thing to help battle the wind and rain erosion. For a site of an age over 1000 years made of mud to have survived this long is amazing.
Moche was established in 900AD, by the same people who built Chan Chan. Moche came first but after they lost faith in the god of the mountain because of climactic changes that no amount of human sacrifice would fix, they moved to Chan Chan, closer to the coast.
Moche is built on the side of Cerro Blanco and features more mud brick construction, on a far larger scale. Of particular impressiveness are the temples built one on top of another for successive kings, always going bigger and better. Five, maybe six temples combine to tower over the landscape and perhaps even more impressive than anything is the beauty of the walls, all painted in intricate patterns – a lot of the paint has remained in good condition, protected by the next temple built over the top, encasing it in protection. Sections have been revealed to show visitors the patterns and restoration and preservation techniques have won awards for their innovation. The site is immense when considering the primitive methods used in the original construction.
Nearby is a museum of artifacts found at the site and excavation and archeological work continues, mostly volunteer man hours by university students removing the sand built up since the 1400’s when the site was abandoned. Perhaps they got sick of knocking off the best gladiators to appease the mountain god when he stopped taking notice. Precious metal ornaments and adornments for kings and shamans, pottery – always pottery – and then there’s the human sacrifice altar and knife and wooden club artifacts that I find gruesomely intriguing.
We took a spin around downtown Trujillo, first city in Peru to proclaim independence from Spain – go Trujillo! – and admired the covered balconies, architecture, plaza with grandiose fountain statuary and bright colours of the buildings.
Lunch and then one of the best massages ever filled the afternoon – the massage was so good I hugged the therapist afterwards – and The Chocolate Cafe in a cosy, charming colonial house served up some of the best tomato soup I’ve ever had. Best of all, it didn’t have any rice or popcorn in it!
