While North Americans were wielding clubs, the South Americans were doing WHAT !!!

Yes, LeRoy is spot on ... the wildlife tour in Lima was amazing!  Fridays are my favorite days, but they do not usually include swimming with Peruvian sea lions.  The  Humbolt penguins were cute, too.  I'm painting one in watercolor class at present.

The day before in Trujillo, Peru was an incredibly dusty, desert adventure.  Trujillo is the 3rd largest city in Peru, and while it is not a normal tourist destination, it has lots to see.  The Huaca de la Luna (Temple of the Moon) and Huaca de Sol (Temple of the Moon) are the Moche temples we visited.  We actually walked up to, and through the Huaca de Sol temple which basically a pyramid.  It was built by the predecessors of the Incans.  Victor, our guide who is an archaeologist, said that while the North Americans were wielding clubs, the Moche were building these temples!  Victor used to play with his brothers when they were children on the mound that is the Temple of the Sun.  There was a policeman patrolling the area on a paso fino horse which the Spanish brought to the area.

Frieze in Temple of the Sun

It is the largest adobe structure in the world.  Inside of it we saw some of the friezes and reliefs, which still show their colorful paint ....the reason they are so well preserved is that the area is very dry and arid, and it only gets 9 millimeters of rain a year.  To appease their gods when nature was not kind to them, you guessed it --- there were human sacrifices here!  There were one or two Americans on this tour that could have served well in that capacity.  The human sacrifices were thought to be those who had lost in hand to hand battles/competitions amongst themselves. These pyramid like structures were used for worship.

Chan Chan

We also went to the Chan Chan Citadel, an 8 square mile area of low lying temples, not pyramids. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is the largest adobe city in the world. They were built by the ancient Chimu people, also pre Inca and pre Spaniards.  There are irrigation canals, store rooms for offerings, and all are decorated with carvings and reliefs that depict snakes, birds, fish, sun, moon and ocean.  There is an amphitheater that is so perfectly designed acoustically that you can hear the Pacific  (which is two miles away).  These Chimu were very advanced people.    They, too, were used for religious rituals.  Excavation is on-going.

We ended the day with a wonderful buffet lunch of local foods in an open air restaurant.  Delicious food like lime infused fish, sweet potato, fried calamari and pisco sours (a regional cocktail that will make you think you are Incan!)  Finally, we walked down the shoreline afterwards to see an exhibitof the way th e fisherman used to ride reed boats, caballitos de totora, translated "little reed horses".  That was funny as one of the guys was upended by a wave!

Thus ends our visit to Trujillo and the Temples.  It will take 3,000 years to wash all the sand from our hair and dust from our feet!