Chan Chan & Lima

Chan Chan & Lima

We went to the pre-Incan ruins of Chan Chan yesterday. It is the largest known pre-Columbian city in the Americas & the largest known adobe city in the world. In its hay day, it covered over 20 sq km & housed 60,000 people.  The ruins now cover over 16 sq km, and only a fraction have been restored. They were discovered fairly recently, having been covered by sand, and therefore pretty well preserved, since it hardly ever rains here. 

The restored palace is a sight to behold. These Chimu people had an advanced system of diverting water from the rivers into a series of canals, so that they could grow plenty of fruits & vegetables. And the men were expert fisherman. They also had a method of finding spots where the ground water was close to the surface, and they would dig down to make these boggy areas where they could get water & also grow the reeds (tatora) needed to make their boats, roofs, and many other things. 

In the evening we went into Trujillo to get dinner & then hop on a night bus to Lima (9 hrs.) We got into Trujillo around 6, thinking that would give us plenty of time to buy our tickets & have dinner before the 10:00 bus. There are tons of bus companies, but unfortunately in Peru they're all housed in their own buildings, not in one general terminal. We went from one company to the next, all of them told us they had buses the next morning, but not tonight. Finally, we tried the last company, Tepsa, which was off on a side street. They had space left!  But we were thinking, what kind of bus company is the ONLY one left with space. We didn't have to worry, it was by far the nicest bus I've ever seen. The seats go back 160* for sleeping, and there was wifi on the bus!  

We got into Lima around 8 am, but then we had to deal with the traffic. Yikes!  At 9:30 we finally pulled into the station. 

Our first stop was the South American Explorers Club clubhouse. The SAE is a club that helps travelers of all kinds (ones like us who are just having fun as well scientists doing research all over S America.)  They allowed us to store our bags, had free coffee and tea for us, and had endless amounts of information on traveling - maps, guidebooks, thousands of reports from other travelers, etc, etc. It was really overwhelming!  They also had a great book exchange where we got a few new books. 

Lima is an amazing city. It is extremely modern, and we spent most of our time in the Miraflores and Barranco neighborhoods. The SAE clubhouse is in Miraflores, where there are tons of shops, restaurants, offices and nice houses. We stayed in Barranco, which was a very chic area by the ocean. Our hostel was a dingy little place nestled in between nice restaurants and bars. 

Jonathan's sister, Caitlin, spent a semester in Peru in college, and we got to have dinner with her host brother, Tomas, who lives & works in Lima now. We went to a great restaurant in Barranco, and then I fell asleep early while the boys went and had another drink. 

Our next day in Lima was jam packed!  Jonathan went off early to buy our bus tickets for that night to Arequipa. I made breakfast and packed up all our things. We went back to the SAE clubhouse first to store our bags and do a little more research. Then we went into central Lima, where we wanted to see a couple famous churches. 

We got dropped off a ways away from our destination, so we walked a little ways to the Plaza de Armas, the main plaza in downtown. It happened to be noon, which is when they do the "changing of the guards" at the Palacio de Gobierno.  It was a very fancy affair with a brass band & high stepping soldiers in beautiful uniforms. We kept on from there heading to our first church, but we happened upon a procession that was about to start down the street in a parade. I can't really tell you what it was all about, but I gathered it was a sort of advertisement for Carnival, an upcoming celebration that they go all out for in a nearby town. There were guys dressed as bulls (or devils?) on stilts, all sorts of giant paper mâché masks, lots of young girls in traditional dress, lots of Jesus on crosses, and lots of cross-dressers. You know, your average parade! ;)

After watching that for a bit, we finally got to our destination, Monasterio de San Francisco. It is a beautiful yellow & white church that was built in the 1600s. It is mostly famous for its catacombs. The tour was entirely in Spanish, so I can't explain why, but at some point they decided to arrange the bones of the close to 75,000 people who had been buried under the church. There are skulls in circles & pyramids, femurs arranged in geometric patterns, and pelvises just heaped up in corners. (I guess pelvises weren't as important??)  It was seriously weird. 

We had some yummy lunch at a little cafe & then headed to the Parque del Amor - the Park of Love. We were hoping to be able to go paragliding!  We had gotten good recommendations on a company that does tandem flights from this place. There are huge cliffs by the ocean, and they take people flying!  Unfortunately there was not enough wind and it was too cloudy. :(

We headed back up to SAE, picked up our bags and chatted with more fellow travelers, and then we were off to the bus station. This bus is a 16 hour trip to Arequipa, with the same company. Good thing I am an expert sleeper!!