Zandhappen (Eating Sand)

As I start writing this, my ears are still full of sand (although my mother might argue they always have been), the result of my last days around Chiclayo. Chiclayo itself was not much to my liking, I must say. Not the biggest (still 400k people), but certainly the most modern city I have seen here, but it just doesn´t work, the town I mean. For everything you want to do, you end up walking all over town for hours to get or do it ... Bulldoze it all, think it through this time and then rebuild it, I say !

And it´s not like I don´t do enough walking already. I actually had little think about that today, why I do that, walking everywhere. When I figure it out, you will hear it in these here pages of course!

Let´s refresh your memory a bit. We are at the coast again, what in this parts means "desert". Do you still remember the Moche ? Fierce bunch of guys and girls who dominated the entire north coast of Peru around the year 500 ? I visited their main capital, the Huacas de la Luna y del Sol in Trujillo. Well, the local capital 200 kms up north is called Sipán and there is something special about it. It has the same weathered Huacas, but in 1987 they found a grave, an another, and another, and a few more ... and two of the graves were of local warrior-priest-rulers, the big shots. And the biggest shot they call "The Lord of Sipán" or "El Señor de Sipán" (almost like Señor Hans).

So my first sandy day here was examining these Huacas and the graves, which were kept open with replicas of the findings within, and then speeding towards the town of Lambayeque, where they have built a brand new museum to house all the objects they found in the graves. And what a museum ! "El Señor de Sipán" is considered de "Tutanchamon" of Peru, but the Egyptians can take an example on how to build a museum for something like this. They show everything, copper and golden jewelry, clothing, pottery, weapons and ... the skeleton of the man himself. Lordly stuff ! I was not allowed to take pictures ... yes I was very disappointed, but that couldn´t dent my sense of awe. This is a must see in Peru. (On the right there´s a link to the official site of the museum. It´s in Spanish, but try it.)

The Moche (or Mochica) came to their end around 700 and here around Chiclayo and Lambayeque a local people took over. They were called the Lambayeque or Sicán people and they built a huge city of adobe in a sand forest north of here at Batan Grande. A little thing about "adobe". Adobe is mud brick. It´s essentially dried mud with grass or straw. Most of the desert civilisations in Peru built their temples in mud brick (and most people still use it). The trouble with this, is that it erodes pretty easily. That´s why you see these weird grooves like river valleys in them in the pictures. They ARE little river valleys ...
Now this sand forest was huge and I decided to walk (duh), going from high point to high point until I saw the huacas rising above the forest. This sand forest was like our dune areas in Holland. A lot like it actually (but then bigger), so I felt at home right away. I ended at the large Huaca del Oro after four hours and decided to take the road back (1 hour ...). It was tiring but very cool, another "discover the temple yourself" day :-)

Remember "El Niño" ? It happens once every many years and they very probably had one around 1100, which killed off the sand forest city. The Sicán people didn´t give up though and built a new one just around the corner at the current town of Túcume. No 5 hour walks required this time, thankfully, just a little stroll through the town (where the local 4 year olds were having a protest march, hilariously cute!). From the holy hill there was a nice view over the 10-20 pyramids littered onto the sandy landscape.

But I didn´t linger long, more sand awaited. A nice afternoon on the windy beach was my reward for all the sand eating in former days. And so am I back to emptying my ears into this keyboard here before me ... my bus to Lima leaves tonight. Just north of Lima, one more sandy adventure awaits, a very special one: Caral ...