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Fixed departures: 06; 13; 20; 27 January 2012 03; 10; 17; 24 February 2012 Itinerary Day 01: Lima to Chiclayo We take the last flight from Peru’s capital to the northern city of Chiclayo. Reception and transfer to hotel. Accommodation.
Day 02: Chiclayo the "Cracked Pyramid", Túcume, and the Royal Tombs of Sipán and to Trujillo Early morning set off for the mud-brick pyramid that made world headlines in 1987 with one of the most sensational finds of recent archaeology. Known as the Huaca Rajada — the "Cracked Pyramid", because of the deep gulley weathered into its flanks — this eroded adobe platform yielded fabulous ancient treasures from a series of deeply buried tombs of the pre-Inca Moche culture, who lived in the valleys of Peru’s north coast 1,500 years ago. To get there we drive east up the broad, flat Reque valley past fields of sugarcane studded with varicolored pastel foothills of the great Andean chain, then arriving at the modern village of Sipán. Here we see the tombs themselves, with superb reconstructions of the burials of priests and chieftains, together with their sacrificed guards and companions.
A highly informative site museum tells the story of this extraordinary civilization, who created some of the finest pottery, jewelry and gold working of the Americas — while also staging macabre costumed rituals of combat, sacrifice and propitiation as they sought to mediate a never-ending struggle between the forces of Order and Chaos. We return to Chiclayo for a delicious lunch of Peru’s northern-style cuisine, and then continue on to Lambayeque, where we visit the Royal Tombs of Sipán Museum. This modern building, representing the style of a Moche pyramid, was built to house the stunning and priceless objects unearthed at Sipán. (A single looted object from the tombs was intercepted at an auction in the U.S. — carrying a reserve price of $1.6 million!)
Here we see the incredible array of precious symbols and images, stones and shell necklaces, ear-plugs and headdresses that were worn and displayed at Moche ceremonies, and also learn what is known of their meaning. This astonishing visit ends at an “animated waxworks” exhibit of the lords and retinue of the Moche court, allowing us to glimpse and imagine the world of an unfamiliar but dazzling civilization that thrived here at a time when Europe was sliding into the Dark Ages after the fall of the Roman Empire. After these sensational experiences we drive to an oasis of calm at Túcume, today’s final destination. Here we see the chronological sequence that followed the fall of the Moche, at a site where their descendants, the Sicán culture, continued to amass millions of adobe bricks for the building of mighty pyramids — including the longest of its kind in the world, at more than 700 m/2,300 ft — but were now influenced by highland tribes, and began to abandon their old ways. The history of this scenic site — extensively investigated by the famed Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl — leads us all the way to the Incas, who conquered the region not long before they, in turn, were conquered by the Spanish. We can climb to a viewing platform with superb views of the surrounding pyramids and the dry woodland habitat of the Leche valley. We can also visit the small, intimate and low-tech site museum, to enjoy the excellent collection of excavated objects, dioramas of daily life, and models of the pyramids. We continue to Trujillo for an overnight stay.
Day 03: Trujillo, Pyramids of the Sun and Moon, the picturesque beach resort of Huanchaco, and the pre-Inca city of Chan Chan and return to Lima This city, founded in 1534 on the orders of Francisco Pizarro, maintains a colonial atmosphere, with its spacious main square, and marvelous colonial-period adobe buildings in the coastal colonial style, featuring huge barred windows and massive wooden doorways. We continue onwards, driving a short way from Trujillo, to visit the Huaca de la Luna, and the Huaca del Sol, two huge flat- topped pyramids built by the Moche culture between 0 and 600 A.D. The Huaca de la Luna is an extraordinary demonstration of what patient long-term archaeology can achieve. Here, at a site that has been well known and frequently looted for centuries, excavations have revealed layer upon layer of ancient construction, uncovering wall after wall of colorful friezes that were intentionally buried by the Moche, and had not seen the light of day for one-and-a-half thousand years. Bloodthirsty fanged deities and exotic gods in the form of spiders, snakes felines, octopi and other marine creatures rub shoulders with lines of dancers, warriors and naked prisoners, and scenes of ritual combat. One wall is covered with such a multitude of mystifying symbols that it has been labeled simply "The Complicated Theme" — until some future archaeologist can offer a plausible explanation of them. A site museum to display material unearthed here is under construction, and when opened it will be part of this visit.
We continue on to the nearby beach resort of Huanchaco, where we have a chance to try the superb seafood of Trujillo at a restaurant overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Here fishermen still paddle out to sea, kneeling on caballitos de totora — little one-man reed rafts which have been used for millennia to collect the abundant bounty of the Pacific ocean. In the late afternoon we drive to the airport in time for our flight to Lima.
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