Huaca Huaca Huaca!

And the adventure begins! We are officially out of Lima and into the good stuff. These past couple of days we have been in Trujillo, the major city of what Peruvians refer to as "El Norte", or The North. We took a 9 hour night-bus ride to get here. (Speaking of Knight Bus, this was after we watched Harry Potter y las Reliquias de la Muerte! Just as epic in Spanish!) Not the best sleep any of us have ever had, so we took it easy yesterday. We went on a short late afternoon tour to our first ruins, El Brujo, which means the Sorcerer. It included a walk through the museum, followed by a hike to the actual ruins. The highlight of the museum was the mummifed body of a 25 year old woman called the Lady of Cao that was found in 2005. She is believed to have been the queen of the Moche people, proving that this culture held women in as high regard as men. Her mummy is dated around 450 AD.

Today we went ona full day tour to three different sites: La Huaca de la Luna (Monument to the Moon), the Huaca Arco Iris (Rainbow Monument) and the largest ruin/monument, Chan Chan. These are pre-Incan ruins, dating back to around 850 AD. We saw lots of recovered bronze (the Spanish took the gold. They took all the Peruvian gold) from tombs and burial sites, and amazing wall etchings and pottery, where most of our knowledge of the Moche people comes from, as there are no writings.

I've uploaded some pictures to my Facebook page, so you can see for yourself! (Grandma, have a look!)

We ended the day at Huanchaco, a beach where we could see ancient traditions alive today, such as the construction and use of reed water rafts. They also have some gnarly waves. (there's no other word, they're huge!) Tomorrow is the Peruvian Independence Day, so we're going to wander around Trujillo and see how the Peruvians celebrate! Hopefully it's not quite as bad as Las Fallas in Spain, where kids through fire crackers AT you and the entire city sounds like it's in a state of war! Though my mom does say they light things on fire, so we shall see :)