Hostal Royal Chiclayo

... We don´t notice the sun going down and suddenly it is almost dark. We find ourselves in a suddenly very remote part of a not so appealing part of town with no taxis. We ask a couple of tuc tuc´s if they will take us the whole 2km back home but it is too far for them (shame, we were up for a race!). We head out to the main road and still no taxis. We are just starting to contemplate our options (not many at this point) when a collectivo taxi ...

... They were left by the pre-Inca Chimu culture. Built with adobe bricks and weathered by hundreds of years of sun, wind, and sand, they really looked more like a funny scattering of rather large sand dunes than they did ancient pyramids. Only when you climb upon a hill that overlooks the ruins can you really see the overall structure and shape of both the pyramids and the complex. The surrounding area is more fertile and green which makes the sandy pyramidal ...

... and found something of huge significance. His investigations led him to what look like 50m high termite mounds, but in AD300 these were adobe pyramids that had since been eroded by rains. Quick police action stopped further looting, but not before a shoot out between the robbers and the police. The good news however was that the archaeologist found several other, more significant regal tombs in ...

... to snag our lunch. Perhaps the most surprising was a White-tailed Deer that investigated the food table one day, then started to approach us. To the amazement of us and the staff, it then proceeded to nuzzle my arm and lick my shirt.

One down side to this reserve is that you must always be accompanied by a guide, but luckily ours was an excellent birder. He led us to a family of Striped Owls our first evening, and a group of 17 ...

... I'm here for one thing: El Museo Tumbas Reales de Sipan. Museum of the Royal Tombs of Sipan. In early 1987, an archaeologist noticed an unusual number of really stunning relics hitting the black market and thought maybe a new site had been discovered by robbers. It may be hard to imagine an ancient pyramid going unnoticed until that time but the environment of northern ...

... up with Eva (who I met in Trujillo) who was in town, so we all went together and had a blasty blast, taking pictures and trying to catch waves all day. Great 5 soles plates of fried fish with fries and rice, more surfing, and then ran back home to change my bus ticket date to tomorrow (instead of tonight). Good day! Tomorrow... more surfing. ;)

Chiclayo fué mucho mejor que Piura, donde no habia nada para hacer. En Chiclayo fuimos a varios museos en una ciudad super cerca que se llama Lambayeque. Ahi esta el museo de Broennin o aglo asi....es el nombre de un Aleman que vivió en la zona mucho tiempo y que hizó varios descubrimientos de artefactos indíguenas. Luego fuimos ...

... Sipán même. Il y a une vingtaine d'années des archéologues ont trouvé à ce site de la civilisation Moche une douzaines de tombes royales, certaines datant de 1800 ans, dont deux tombes de membres d'une même famille, enterrés à quelques centaines d'années d'intervalle. La richesse des objets trouvés est incroyable, et le musée présente tout ça en détails. Je n'ai malheureusement pas de photos du musée, c'est complètement interdit... Après ça j'étais bien fatigué mais ...