Our full group was finally gathered in Lima. There of course was Bruce and Jerry. John a Yoga instructor originally from Oakland, CA. Nick from Portland. Natalie from London. Todd a alternative doctor. Dingo (AKA Mike) still excited from his time at burning man. Our little juicy pocket chica, Nennette. Mike West, our resident skeptic. Kyle a young fairly quiet man. The other Todd (Olsen) who I would hike Machu Picchu peak with. Cathrine who would be dubbed Druna before long. Angie the Nicknamer and Drew a model. One of the things I ended enjoying about the trip is being the token straight guy in the group.
- To Trujillo
- Lunch
- Chan Chan
- Downtown Trujillo
- Day Highlights
- Favorite Picture of the Day
- Days Photo Gallery (opens in new page)
To Trujillo
After having arrived in Lima at about 10:30pm local time, we basically had a nap and then were up and back at the airport around 4am in the morning to catch our flight to Trujillo on the north coast. Can you say a little travel weary already?
Regardless, we were taken to our hotel which was north of Trujillo, in Huanchaco. It was a very nice hotel. I was sharing a room with Drew and Nick, as I would throughout the whole trip. The hotel was directly across the street from the ocean. I immediately began to remember growing up with wonderful views of the ocean and the sunset over the ocean. There truly is nothing like it.
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Lunch
After getting settle we headed off to lunch down the street. The lunch was amazing with mean trying quite a few different things. Ruben ordered for us, and I just tried a lot of different things, with the Ceviche being my favorite of the day. It immediately became apparent to me that the pace of life was significantly slower here in Peru. Lunch lasted in the order of hours. Planning for moving to our next destination seemed very casual. It felt wonderful to experience. Lot’s of time and room to breath and be present. The fresh ocean air was additionally outstanding, something I have missed about living in the bay area.
After lunch was a short walk across the street to the beach as we waited for Ruben to handle some stuff.We were shown some of the traditional reed boats that are used for fishing. This method of fishing has been used for hundreds of years, with the fishermen still going out in the morning on these reed boats and fishing to catch only what is necessary for the day. Noticing a bunch of dead fish on the beach, Ruben explained how when the El Nino current changes and warms up the water how it takes a high toll on the fish as a result.
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Chan Chan
From here it was back on the bus to be taken back towards Trujillo to an area of Chimu ruins known as Ruinas de Chan Chan. Our first ruins of the trip were definitely impressive. Chan Chan an area that was once developed of currently over 20 square km, and historically about twice that size. Chan Chan had little fortress towns built up for each of it’s kings, referred to as citadel. So in the area still preserved, there are nine citadels. We visited the one open to the public, Tschudi Citadel.
Now when the Chimu had a king they would build these complexes with abode brick. The walls were about 40 feet tall. With various rooms, plazas, storage rooms, and ceremonial places in the complex. Then when the king would die, the king would be interred into that particular complex. Then the entire community would move to another location with a new king and build a whole new citadel. The amount of work that would go into these was astonishing, and then to just simply leave it and start all over again is just mind boggling.
The ruins are the largest, in terms of area, adobe ruins in the world. The whole site is made of adobe bricks. As such the entire citadel was rather monochrome in color, and obviously suffering from the weather in deterioration. Though some of the walls the symbols had been restored to show what the citadel was once like. There were numerous motifs of zoomorphic and anthropomorphic creates throughout the complex. From pelicans to catfish to squirrels to swans to other creatures that were obviously a combination of a few different types of animals. Highly skilled and detailed pottery had been found at this site as well.
It was believed that the ruins during the time they were occupied were not of a colorful nature. Ruben said he had a vision of lot’s of color at these places, but was disbelieved after sharing that. Then he showed how recently a small section that did indeed have coloring was discovered.
From there we learned about how during this time period this area of the coast was in fact much more lush, with a higher water supply. After the conquest by the Spaniards, much of the trees in the area were cut down, drying up much of the water making this area arid as it is now. However still there was a need for a large water source due to the housing of so many thousands of people. And that is when we were brought to the cistern.
This cistern had been hand dug by the inhabitants to provide a steady source of water. It was massive in scale and about 15m deep. It was truly a breath-taking area to behold. There is still water in the cistern, which of course meant that there was reeds and high grasses still in the cistern. Also making the cistern quite picturesque was the fact that there was a lone Egret in the pond surrounded by many ducks. It was a beautiful scene. Later our group noticed two rather large lizards that seemed to call the cistern their home as well.
Finally we were taken to the tomb of the king that resided in this citadel. The king of course had been removed and the tomb was not necessarily a spectacular site to behold per se. However the knowledge that after he was interned, a whole community picked up and left this citadel only to start it all over again was mind boggling.
Ruben began talking at this point about a topic that he would touch on frequently in all our travels to the various ruins that we would go to. How these people were connected to energy and to the cycles of the earth, of life. How they had no concept of linear time as we know it. They are not building something like this thinking, “oh it is going to take me x amount of hours to build this wall.” They are just in touch with the cycle of life and building for that cycle. And after the cycle is over, they move on to start the new cycle. How a king represents the archetypal energy of the sun and essentially how when a king died it was the setting of the sun in a form. So that cycle has ended.
Additionally how they were connected to the energy of a place or spot in the earth and what that did for the people as far as health, happiness and living in harmony. How for these people the energy of a spot was associated with a king, and that king would die, then the association with the energy would end, and the new king would need to associate himself with a new source of energy to make his mark so to speak.
To demonstrate this, shortly after the king’s tomb, in a large plaza, he asked for a volunteer. Natalie stepped forward. He had Natalie close her eyes, and he told her to relax. He touched the top of her head and rubbed a particular spot. Then ran his hand down her back, I got the sense as if he was “unzipping” her. her body slowly started to rotate in a spiral type fashion. Ruben “closed” her back up, speaking about these energy. He referred to the energy in the area as a vortex, and this is something that he would come back to over and over during the trip.
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Downtown Trujillo
From Chan Chan we again boarded the bus to head to the historic downtown area of Trujillo. Here there was a main plaza, Plaza de Armas de Trujillo, with a large statue as the center point. Situated around this plaza were numerous Historic buildings from the colonial times.
The colonial buildings surrounding the plaza were quite beautiful. There was an outdoor concert just closing down. And our group immediately seemed to gravitate towards the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Mary, a large colonial cathedral, of a bright yellow color at one end of the plaza.
Inside the decor and frescoes on the ceiling were just outstanding. The doors to the cathedral were amazing being the original wooden doors, still with the original nails in it. There once was an earlier cathedral that was destroyed in an earthquake in the early 1600′s that the current one was built to replace. As a historical building I completely appreciated the artwork and age of this wonderful building.
Ruben later explained how this was built over a place that was considered sacred by the indigenous people to begin the process of colonization and control that the Spaniards exhibited in such force in the Americas. Though I learned later what they did around here was not nearly so bad as what they did in other places in Peru.
After this we walked around the block of the city to get to an ATM. Looking at a few other buildings along the way. The bus ride home provided us with a spectacular view of the sunset over the ocean for our first evening in Trujillo. From there another spectacular meal that evening.
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Day Highlights
For me there were two main highlights of the day. The first being was coming upon the cistern. The Ruinas de Chan Chan were very colorless and drab, being fairly monochrome in some ways due to the location and nature of things. Then to round the wall and come upon this sea of green, with the blue water was really quite breathtaking, particularly since my favorite color is green. Then to see the egret, many ducks and large lizard in the water or nearby was amazing. Not to mention the sheer scope of the cistern that was hand dug a thousand years ago. I could have really stayed and hung out at this idyllic spot for some time.
Secondly was just simply the sunset. I grew up with my back deck pointed out towards the Pacific Ocean. So I grew up watching spectacular sunsets out over the beauty of the Pacific. The colors, the clarity, are just spectacular, and sunsets elsewhere, though they might be spectacular cannot compare. I honestly cannot remember exactly the last time that I got to see the sunset over the Pacific Ocean. It was so beautiful, and brought back a longing for my childhood home.
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Favorite Picture of the Day
I have decided I am going to run each post with a favorite picture of the day that I took. Today’s picture I took of Bruce at lunch. I adore Bruce and I think he is a very fun loving spirit. The whole trip I thought this picture really capture Bruce’s essence and fun loving spirit. To check out all the other pictures from the first day check out this link.
Bruce laughing while at lunch
