Chan Chan

 We arrived in Peru this morning. The temperature was noticeably cooler than it had been a few days earlier. I guess we are under the influence now of the Humboldt Current, the great flow of cold water from the Antarctic towards the equator, similar to the cold water from the Artic that flows along the California coast. But the coast of Peru is far more arid than anything I have ever seen in California or even in Baja. There hills are completely barren with not the slight bit of chapparal or even grass.

As the ship approached the pier, I was fascinated, as I often am, by fishing boats.

We are docking in Salavery, a town a few miles outside of Trujillo. Even from the ship, I could tell that it was not much of a settlement. Most of the homes seemed to have been built on sand dunes. They are all made of concrete or cinderblock. Most are not painted. It all looks desperately poor, even worse than the towns on the Mexican border.

Today we had one of our few tours with Norwegian.  I prefer to arrange my own excursions with a local operator, usually through Viator. They are always smaller than the cruise ship excursions, and frequently cheaper. But this time I could not find a an independent to see what I wanted to see, the ruins of the great pre-Columbian city of Chan Chan. So I had to book with Norwegian. The tour was obviously popular, and even two months before our sail date the English language tour had sold out. Spanish was still available, so I booked that. I can usually follow what people are saying in Spanish if I have some background in the material. Still, today’s excursion did remind me why I find cruise ship excursions so painful. We were stuck in the theater for forty-five minutes awaiting assignment to a tour bus. A rather sarcastic South African was in charge, and he spent most of the time telling people to just sit down and be quiet.

We finally made it to our bus. We had a long drive through outskirts of Trujillo. I read that there is a somewhat attractive colonial section of Trujillo. But this was not it. This area was poor. Trash was strewn everywhere. There seemed to be an astonishing number of tire shops. I saw a few restaurants but noticed that they seemed to have few windows. Maybe even the residents find this place depressing. But occasionally there was something interesting. I saw this at an intersection.

Apparently, this park and bus shelter is some kind of testament to Moche culture. But there are Moche around anymore. The Chimu conquered them 1500 years ago. So I am not sure how accurate any of this really is.

As the bus continued on, the guides endlessly chatted with us. Although the tour was nominally in Spanish, most of the people on the tour spoke English as a first or second language, so the guides tried mostly explaining things in less-than-fluent English. They were really sweet people, and I appreciated their efforts.

Our destination for day, as I mentioned before, was the ruins of Chan Chan. This was the capital of the Chimu empire. For nearly 800 years it was the largest settlement in the coast. The Chimu had learned to divert the water from the rivers that carry snow melt from the Andes to the Pacific through the coastal desert. By doing this, the Chimu managed to flourish in an area that often typically gets only four or five millimeters of rain a year.

But before we went to the ruins, we had to stop by the Chan Chan museum. John posed while we waited to go in.

He also posed with a dog that had picked a shady spot by the entrance for a nap.

The Chan Chan museum might have been better referred to as an interpretive center. There was a room with a large map on the wall showing the extent of the Chimu settlement. There were a few mannequins dressed as Chimu soldiers or aristocracy, though I am not sure how accurate these were. Also a few artifacts on display, though not much to identify the date of piece or its use. Most were pots but we did see this small statue.

My guess is that it was a religious object, but I could see no label of any kind.

There was room with a large model of the city.

Unfortunately, the museum was hot and crowded. It was hard to move. John started to feel dizzy, so we went outside while our guide finished talking to our group. We found a shady spot not far from the entrance.

The bus ride from the museum to the archeological site was much shorter. While the Chimu flourished on the coast here for centuries, they were conquered by the ruthless Incas. The Inca completely cut off the water supply that made it possible for Chan Chan to exist. The city was abandoned. But the Inca were not in charge for long. The Spanish conquered Peru about 50 years later. Pizzaro established Trujillo as city. The Spanish were certainly aware of Chan Chan, and looted tombs for precious metals. But they otherwise simply allowed it to be slowly covered by sand.

There was no significant archeological work at Chan Chan until the late 1960s. Since then, there has been an explosion of interest in the site, and funding for the excavation has come from many governments and the Getty Trust. Much remains to be done. Only one of the ten major palaces that were in the city has been fully excavated.

Interpreting the remains is not easy because the Chimu did not have a written language. Archeologists can only guess at the functions of buildings based on what they know from similar structures in other cultures. Chan Chan was probably mostly a royal and religious center. There are many smaller buildings, often more irregular in shape, within the area, but scholars think that these were the homes and workshops of artisans who were needed by the priests and aristocrats.

Some of the cuidadelas, the Spanish term that that archeologists use for the palaces and temples, have large central courtyards. Nobody is completely sure what the function of these was.

The entire complex is completely made of mud brick.

The most fascinating part of these structures is the decoration of the adobe walls in bas reliefs. This is not an easy technique with mud. Certain animal motifs are repeated over and over again.

The tour was interesting, but too much walking for John in the heat. We left the tour early and went back to the bus. Still, even though I did not see everything at Chan Chan, I think we had a good sense of what is here.