So after our incredible hike we decided to spend a few days in Huaraz just chilling out, doing laundry and wandering around. The town is wonderful and still very traditional. The markets are manic places that sell everything the locals need from Spices to Baby clothes!
Oh and any part of a cow you may want.
The whole place is stuffed full of produce................
................. of every kind.
Outside many carts sell, mainly food, to passers by.
The busy back street.
Locals sit around chatting and trading goods. It was delightful to see that many of the local women wear the traditional dress of knee length skirts and tall hats.
I was really taken by this wonderful town and its friendly people. Such a hub of activity and noise surrounded by the mountains.
Back on the overnight bus further up the North West coast to Trujillo, a place known for its historical ruins.
Arriving in Trujillo was very different far more industrialised and modern.
Lunch was first on the menu. We wandered around and finally could only come across chain restaurants but one called 'Rustica' is the best of a bad bunch. Rustica is an Italian restaurant and actually was very good. Shortly after we arrived to this huge place we noticed that an 'event' was about to commence. It turned out to be a couple's 60th wedding anniversary! The whole family sat round a big table and they played a slide show of their life and family. We sat behind all this and could clearly watch the whole event, it was lovely.
There are 2 other points to make about our meal here, firstly, that in the background the whole time played the worst jazz covers I have ever heard; 'Like a Virgin' & 'In the Air Tonight' were amongst the set, trust me it was an ear bleeder!
Secondly, we have noticed lots of differences between the Peruvian way of life and ours but one little odd one is that your meal rarely comes at the same time as your dinner partner's. They seem to bring out the food as it is ready. The photo above shows how much Kenny had eaten of his lunch before mine arrived despite the only difference between the dishes was the type of pasta!
Trujillo is famous for its ancient ruins (1500 years old) of the Chimu civilisation, Chan Chan. There are various palaces over a huge area, most of which have not yet been excavated. The Chimu's believed in the Moon God and regularly made human sacrifices to him as part of great rituals. Each palace was created for the king and each time he died a new one was build and all within moved house, the dead king being buried in his palace along with servants, possessions and his concubines.
They were magnificently decorated to symbolise various activities or rituals. The picture shows some squirrels although I cannot remember why this was important.
Most of the palaces have been restored, due to harsh winds and rain but also poor building materials, but they still look pretty amazing. Back in the day they would also have been painted, brown, red, white & yellow.
The Kings main entrance to the main hall where the sacrifices etc took place.
A stork.
The palaces had many rooms and passages.
This is another site, much smaller and more of a temple which was created to worship the rainbow god. Here they only sacrificed children as they were pure.
After our tour of the ruins we went back to where we were going to stay, up the road by the coast to a place called Huanchaco, a surfers paradise (when it is in season). As it was not the season, most places were closed, we were the only diners in our restaurant and we decided to catch another night bus instead!
However the most incredible sunset and due to being so close to the Equator such a fast one.
The town is also a fishing village where they still fish in the traditional ways on these little boats made of reeds. They paddle out and surf back in. Apparently they were surfing here well before Hawaiians.
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