- Visit the extremely worth seeing Moche frescoes in the Huaca de la Luna
- Tour of the ruins of Chan Chan, the capital of the Chimu
- Short stop at the beach town of Huanchaco
We can have a leisurely breakfast before we set off at 11 a.m. in the direction of the two adobe adobe pyramids Huaca de la Luna y Sol from the time of the Moche culturewho inhabited the region between the 1st and 8th centuries.
The bigger one Pyramid of the sun is already visible from afar. Located just outside the gates of the modern city, it is the with 41 m high, the largest pyramid in South America. It is estimated that up to 140 million sun-dried mud bricks were built here by the Moche. After gold was found, the Spaniards even diverted the river to remove the pyramid, so that today only a fraction of the original structure is preserved.
500 m behind at the foot of the Cerro Blanco are the remains of the once richly decorated Huaca de la Luna. In between are the remains of the city that is now covered.
We start with the brand new one Museo del Sitio, which shows numerous interesting finds from the region. Then we go over to the place of sacrifice, where young warriors were sacrificed in honor of the gods. Recent research has shown that the warriors were sacrificed in El Niño years.
The Weather phenomenon El Niño afflicts the dry coast of Peru approximately every 25 years. Caused by weak trade winds, the cold Humboldt Current collapses, leading to unusually warm water in the East Pacific. Therefore it comes to the death of the plankton, which for Collapse of entire food chains. As a result, more rain falls on the coast, the nutrient-poor warm water causes fish to disappear and starve due to the coastal inhabitants. But not only the South American Pacific coast is affected by El Nino! The Amazon basin is unusually dry, in Southeast Asia and Australia there are strong bush fires due to the lack of rain, the Indian monsoons are much stronger, East Africa receives more rain, while southern Africa is drier, even on the North American west coast Floods and effects on exceptionally harsh winters in Europe are discussed.
Then they follow fascinating frescoes and wall paintingswhich are amazingly well preserved. On the one hand, the extremely dry desert climate, on the other hand, the Moche Indians themselves took care of by creating the old structure built over and the temple expanded to have. The colorful frescoes show faces of the deities with jaguar teeth, which are very similar to representations of Mesoamerica. A contact between these two cultures is considered to be assured, probably the first Moche immigrated from this region by boat. Several pronounced El Nino phenomena and a subsequent drought have probably led to a civil war and the abandonment of the area.
There are numerous other layers still buried today, but the excavated areas are enough to astonish us. On the north wall the entire facade over seven steps exposed. Then we go back to Trujillo, where we have an hour lunch break before we start the second part of the tour.
This time we go to Chan Chan, the capital of the much younger Chimú empire. In the likely largest city in what was then South America around AD 1300 lived around 60,000 people. Conquered by the Inca a few years before the arrival of the Spaniards, the city was deserted when they arrived. The Spaniards made use of the city's wealth and rainy El Nino years have left only ruins of the adobe buildings.
In the middle of the modern city we visit the heavily restored one Huaca Arco Iris. Then it goes on to the best preserved Nik-An complex (also Tschudi complex). Ugly, but unfortunately indispensable Corrugated iron roofs should protect the ruins from further rains. The dimensions of the complex are enormous, this temple alone extends over an area of 1 kilometer in length and 600 meters in width and is surrounded by walls up to 4 meters thick and 12 meters high. Three large plazas, numerous storage rooms, graves and a water reservoir can be seen, the walls of which are or were richly decorated. Here, too, a lot had to be restored so that the visitor gets an impression of the former splendor of this city.
At the end of the day we go to Coastal town of Huanchaco, where we walk along the beach and watch the numerous surfers. Traditional reed boats are set up on the beach - nowadays more than decoration. Back in Trujillo we have a short meal and then we pack, because it starts early tomorrow.
