High in the Andes...Craig

Hola from the lovely colonial town of Chachapoyas, high in the Andes at 8000 feet, in northern Peru.  It took awhile to get here, but we finally made it.

After a long flight to Lima, through Houston, we had to stay overnight in the airport for an early flight to Chiclayo, a city on the northern coast of Peru.  The area of Chiclayo, called Lambayeque, is famous for its ancient ruins and fantastic museums.  The best museum is in the town of Lambayeque, where we stayed one night.  This museum is called El Museo de Tumbas Reales del Senor de Sipan.  About 20 years ago, archeologists found what is being called the King Tut of Latin America.  An intact tomb of an ancient lord of a great city of the Moche civilization.  The Moche were big time around here about 1700 years ago.  It was a lucky find as the tomb robbers, called huaqueros, seem to find stuff before the archeologists do.  But not this time.  They found over 1800 amazing objects of gold, silver, copper, shell, pottery, etc.  These are shown in a great museum, very modern and well lit.  There are pictures showing you how they found the objects and the restoration process.  One of the best museums in South America and the reason a lot of tourists come up here.

These are examples of some of the earings they found on the Lord of Sipan.

The next day we wanted to head north to check out some of the ancient pyramids near Lambayeque.  These pyramids basically look like dirt hills as they are made of mud bricks and over the centuries they have eroded away with big caverns and holes from the rain.  Amy found out about a great horse back ride we could do to some of these ruins on the special horse from here, called Caballos de Paso.  These horses have a very odd gait where their legs and hooves make this circular movement when they trot.  This results in a very smooth ride compared to a normal horse.

So  we found a Paso horse ranch, called Rancho Santana, where you can ride these horses to some nearby ruins called Batan Grande.  The owner of the Rancho, a rather lovely young Swiss lady named Andrea, took Amy and me out for a four hour tour.  We trotted along some nice pathways, past little villages and through a nice forest until we got to a pyramid.  We were able to climb the pyramid and look out over the plain.  There were several other pyramids not too far away.  Apparently this was a city of about 10,000 people a thousand years ago.

Next to one of the pyramids was an actual ongoing archeological dig, with lots of local workers.  Most of these workers used to be huaqueros, the tomb robbers, but now the archeologists have made honest men out of them by teaching them how to do these digs correctly.  When we arrived, there was a party going on and a lot of the workers were totally drunk on chicha, a local brew, and playng cards and soccer.  But about 5 workers were in the dig and showed us skeletons, still in the ground, of a llama, a dog, and a human.  They were very delicately, with what looked like dental tools and small brushes, clearing away dirt from the bones.

We´ve been eating very well here.  The speciality in this part of Peru is, of course, ceviche.  We have had this at every meal.  Wonderful fresh fish of all kinds with different preparations of either a red sauce or just marinated in lime, my favorite.  They also make a wonderfull cabrito, which is kid, or baby goat.  This is served in a brown sauce and is accompanied by a wonderful kind of fried rice.

They also specialize in duck, or pato, that is roasted in all sorts of spices.  Yum!!!

So now we have moved from the coast up into the Andes.  We took an all night bus from Chiclayo for the 11 hour ride.  This was a cama bus, which have seats that fold out into beds.  Very comfortable!  We both slept almost the whole way. 

We are in the beautiful colonial town of Chachapoyas.  Very beautiful buildings and not at all touristy, like Cuzco.  It´s hard to find anything that they sell to tourists.  Not an alpaca sweater anywhere!  It´s been raining the last few hours (and this is the dry season!).  But who cares.  We´ve walked around the cobblestone streets and went to a fantastic local market.  In the whole town there seem to be less then 10 gringos and you don´t get hassled at all, like some of the more popular destinations in Peru.  There is a lot to do here and tomorrow we are heading up to a small town called Levanto where there is an Inca road that comes down to Chachapoyas.

Here is the view from our hotel, the Hotel Revash.