Trujillo

We arrived in Trujillo last night and had a chance to wander around and admire the colonial buildings at dusk.  We booked a tour for today and had a nice dinner at a Chifa, a Chinese restaurant in Peru. 

This morning, we got up and wandered around the city for an hour or so. Trujillo was one of the first cities founded by the Spaniards, in 1534, and there are still many old colonial buildings and churches that have been maintained and in some cases repurposed as banks or offices.  We are at an internet cafe so I can´t post pictures until later, but it is a lovely city.

Then, we were on a day tour to two really interesting sets of ruins, the Huaca de la Luna (temple of the moon), which is a Moche site built around 600 AD.  It was covered by sand until the 1900s so it has been very well preserved and it was very interesting to see what has been uncovered, the ongoing work, and the beautiful murals that exist intact from that long ago--the pictures are lovely.  In the afternoon we went to Chan Chan, which is the largest adobe city in the world and the largest pre.Colombian settlement in the Americas, apparently.  It was built later, between 1000-1400 and consists of nine separate palaces.  We got to see the one where the most excavation has been done, and it is huge and complex as well.  We also got to swing by the beach at the end and eat ice cream and see the ´caballitos de totora´, which literally translates as seahorses made of reed, which are traditional fishing boats that have been used for centuries on this part of the coast to fish.  We didn´t take this, but here is a quick visual:

source

So, we have had a great day and are now hanging out until our overnight bus leaves at 10:45 for Lima. Luckily, it is only 8 hours this time, so it will feel easy compared to the 20-hour Tacna to Lima jaunt.  We are planning to catch up on internet, get dinner, maybe read a little, and then hop on the bus!  From Lima, we will head straight to Pisco and continue south from there.