31October2006 Halloween Night
Trujillo, PeruMy name is now “Reina Chan Chan”, Queen Chan, thus so dubbed by our taxi driver, Prolando, who spent the day driving us to the ancient sites of Chan Chan, Huanca Sol y Luna, Huanco Esmeralda, and Hunaco Dragon. These sites are on the coast of Peru, in and near Trujillo. As you know, my last name is Chan and thus, visiting the ancient site Chan Chan surely meant that there had to be a heritage link to these ancient people. If not by blood connection, there was definitely a spirit connection.
Chan Chan is the site of the ancient Chimu people. They are known for their elegant mud block construction and their maze like strategy for site planning. It is this maze like complex over 40 square kilometers that kept them safe and defensive from many intruders (including the Incans, if only temporarily. Eventually, even they fell to the Inca Empire.) The site is a series of rooms and plazas that are arranged to serve the religious and the functional needs of the community, about 100,000 population. Included were several depositories for food, reservoirs for fresh water, plazas for ceremony (which was acoustically amazing), smaller plazas for fertility ceremonies, the rooms for the king and his Queen and his concubines, and several small rooms for the priest. There may have been more rooms and nuances, but I am here at the Internet without any reference books.
This was a religious based society built on reciprocity, redistribution and trade. This was not a society or economy based on exchange of monetary currency.
Unlike anywhere else in Peru, the mud-sand walls contained relief’s of pelicans, otters, fish and other images. Wall stood 30 meters high, with design relief’s that held images replicating the otters of the sea and the pelicans of the sky. These walls and relief’s remain after thousands of years of exposure adjacent to the Pacific Ocean, several bouts of El Niño’s, and earthquakes. Interestingly, the archeologist are still uncovering and interpreting much of the site.
We had access to only one King´s palace and grounds. There are at least eight more identified sites under different states and conditions of conservation or no conservation. And to our dismay, a major roadway divides the entire site for local traffic between Trujillo and Huanchaco. Another reminder that all of the sites need conservation, but the ability of the government to care for this huge site is extremely difficult. Chan Chan has been declared a World Heritage Site, but even that is not enough to hold on to its valuable cultural importance.
About 30 minutes from Chan Chan is the ancient site of Huanca Sol y Luna. This was a community of the Moche culture. The Moche culture revered the moon, Luna, and all the cycles and powers associated with the moon. The community was especially attentive when the moon took over the sun, the eclipse. They sited their community, both the pyramid to the sun and the pyramid to the moon next to the White Mountain, another natural feature revered by the Moche. The people were attentive to many of the natural forces that they believed affected their lives. And if for some reason, they believed the Gods were not happy with them, the priest and priestess would call for a competition. After a set of fights, the losers would have the honor of being ceremonially sacrificed to the Gods. We were surprised to see fragments of bones and shardes of pottery that littered the site.
Over the years, the plazas and the pyramidal like structures would be built over older generations of Moche Royal Reigns. The pyramids with their painted relief walls stood to represent six levels of temples and the reign of many kings. Tombs of forty kings were found on the site. Painted reliefs are unique. The paint came from minerals of the area that generated ocres, reds, blues, blacks, and white paint. This was the first site where we had the opportunity to view walls and reliefs with paint preserved for thousands of years. Relief images of waves, sea animals, condors, snakes, pelicans, dragons, warriors, priests, Peruvian hairless dogs, and Moche masks.
The Moche masks held face images which were demonstrated emotions: happy, sad, and even angry. Why? We do not know.
At this site, the conservation efforts to remove the layers of clay, reveal painted reliefs. The painstaking effort to remove the layers of clay over the paint is done everyday from 8am until 3pm with thin knives, cotton balls and enormous care. After 3pm all work is stopped as the winds blew in from the Pacific Ocean, making the sand a brutal enemy. Conserving a wall area of six feet long and five feet height, can take six months to recover and preserve.
When one Moche community built over the next, they did not demolish the old, but built on top of the old, thus conserving the old. Whether this was a decision of economics, land stewardship or labor conservation is unknown. What is known is that the sites were well preserved until the Spanish Conquistadors decided to excavate to obtain the metals that were buried with each King. The craftsmen of the Moche culture were highly skilled and sophisticated to work with gold, copper, and silver. They were known for their metallurgic skills, creating gold armor, masks, jewelry. The news of these objects in the tombs of the Moche rulers, reached the Conquistadors who traveled from the Inca lands of Cuzco, Peru and Quito, Ecuador, to steal and rape the tombs of Huanca Sol y Luna. In their quest and zest for gold, the Spaniards excavated down the six levels thereby totally destroying the top level, damaging many of the painted reliefs at all levels and destabilized these thousand year old walls. In addition, the community that sustained the lives of the Royals, Priest and Priestess was destroyed when the Spaniard rerouted a river to flood their community and destroy all essence of the Moche society. However, current belief is that the Moche people did not succumb to the Spaniards, but instead some other force came, perhaps a very bad El Niño, that lead the society to abandon the site and their old ways. Much is left for interpretation and discovery.
Huanca Sol y Luna is being conserved by several private foundations in cooperation and collaboration with the University in Trujillo and its archeology department. Many students and docents are volunteering to assist the effort. The project is huge.
We could not enter the Huanca Sol as it is under excavation and investigation. As our volunteer guide said, “Everyday there is a new discovery at Huanca Sol or Huanca Luna.”
After visiting four archeology sites and a museum and after having slept on the bus from Huarez for eight hours, we were hungry and tired. We knew we could not leave this area without enjoying a platter or two of one of Peru´s favorite coastal cuisine so off we were for our last junket.
In the coastal town of Huanchaco, a mere 30 minutes from Trujillo, we enjoy the best ceviche John and I have ever eaten. As some of you may know, ceviche is a Peruvian specialty and finds its roots in this country, possibly in this small town. The fish and seafood was fresh and delicious. John was the willing partaker of the hot sauce and fresh picante peppers. He dashed the peppers and the ceviche down with yet another one of the many Peruvian beers. The girls enjoyed calamari and fritas yucca and more fresh lime juice and orange juice. We will miss the fresh juices of Peru.
Huanchaco is known for its reed canoe fishing boats and its surfing beaches. Peak season for surf boarding is January, February and March for the locals and July, August, September and October for the foreigners. The sunset on the Pacific Ocean was a welcomed sight as we were weary and deserved a nap.
This will be our last entry from Peru. Tonight at midnight, we catch the bus for Ecuador. Alas, for us, another bus, another border to cross. Although, there is a list of places in Peru and Bolivia that we missed visiting, we are all beginning to feel the call of ´home´ and our own beds. We have had enough of sleeping on the buses and in rooms that are not our own. We know what Goldilocks must have felt like, searching for the perfect bed and perfect bowl of porridge.
What we do know for sure is that Peru has much to offer the curious traveler. Our lists of places to visit in the future include: the Royal tombs and gold masks of Sipan, the jungles of the Manu National Park, and the annual dance festivals of Trujillo in January and many other places. Most importantly, we will return because we have made friends in Peru who have touched our hearts, brought joy to our lives and taught us so much about their culture and their country. We thank them all: Nelly, Juan, Luis, Michele, Alex, Jose, Prolando, Norma, Jody, Roxanne, Doris, and many more individuals whose names we never knew, but who made our visit memorable. Thank you.