The Past and the Present

What is it that attracts me so much about history ?

I believe my real interest got sparked by my high school first grade history teacher, who would tell us so vividly about ancient Mespotamia and Egypt. I didn´t follow it up though, choosing the ´Way of the Computer´ for my future. But the last few years it has come back ... big time. Spending my free time with my nose in the books, and better still, spending my travel time in the places where things actually happened. And the more I read and saw, the more I started to understand. Not only the world of yesterday, but also (and especially) the world of today. It might be a cliché, but history does repeat itself. And the fascination only grew with that.

Usually, the start of history is defined as the time we humans started recording our comings and goings in writing. The need for writing came from accounting at the start of more complex economies, where people stopped solely spending their time providing food and all other requirements for themselves and their families, but also started specialising: producing food, making clothes, making pots, etc, all became specialised professions, whose products needed to be traded.
This brought people together and created the first cities. And where many people are together, a form of higher authority developed to keep everything under control, mostly in the form of religious movements who built stone monuments to strengthen their power.

These developments, also called the start of civilisation, are interconnected and (as far as we konw now) first appeared in southern Irak (Mesopotamia) around 3000 BCE, shortly followed by ancient Egypt, and a number of centuries later in India and China. From my adventures you have already discovered how rich the history of Peru actually is (and haven´t even been in the main Inca lands yet), but the beginning of civilisation in South America was much much later ... until a few years ago when Caral was discovered, 200km north of Lima in the coastal desert.

Caral, a city of stone pyramids as old as those of Egypt, evidence of temples, specialisation, trade with the mountains and the jungle far away. And even an accounting system. A "Quipu" was found here, which is a series of knotted strings, that was also widely used by the Incas 4000 years later. (Interestingly, in Peru, the accounting systems never turned into ´proper writing´ as it quickly did in Irak and Egypt. And neither was pottery or metal working developed here).

I visited this site yesterday and it blew my mind. Imagine a city of more than 3000 people which was as ancient to Alexander the Great as he is to us. I must admit my fascination for all this might make it seem better than it would be for most people (a few piles of rock maybe), but I was in awe. There are 7 main pyramids, between 10 and 30 meters high. People are restoring them at the moment, rebuilding the pyramids with the original stones, and will be for quite some years to come. It has actually just opened for tourism (they were building the baños as well). Houses were found, evidence for human sacrifice, food, reed bags in which they moved the stones, and even the stone quarry itself, on top of which they built another temple. And one of the most interesting buildings they uncovered is (Rachel, are you reading this?), a small music amfitheatre. They have found over 50 musical instruments and inscriptions of musical performances.

I have seen quite some sites now in this fine land, but Caral was by far the most impressive. I wonder if the Incas can top this ...

Enough of the past (for now). The rest of my second stay in Lima I spent with the lovely Rachel, who is teaching music to high school students in Lima for 4 months (and is almost done). I met her in Huaraz many years ago it feels as we did the Santa Cruz trek (the first one) together.
She showed me that Lima also has a nicer side to it, Miraflores, Barranco and the seaside. And I finally had my birthday cake ! :-)
On Saturday night we went to see a "peña", a show of Peruvian folkoric dancing. It was great ! They performed music and dances from all over Peru (and let the public dance in between dances). An extremely good show and an extreme challenge for a budding photographer ... those stupid dancers didn´t want to keep still ...

As a final note, the rumours that I have lost weight are grossly exaggerated. I am eating fine and retaining my slim figure as always. And I have decided to take a holiday from my travels. The next few days I can be found in the desert oasis of Huacachina, posing that fine slim body of mine in the comforts of a hammock. There !