Pyramids

Last week on Wednesday, I took a tour to visit the Tombs of the Mochica including a priest and the Lord of Sipán, a few museums, Lambayeque, and Tucume- the site of 26 adobe pyramids on about 50 acres of land. It was a great tour. Our group was 16 made up of five Chileans, 1 Spaniard, 2 Limeños, 3 people from Arequipa, and some Ecuadorans plus the guide and the driver.

We first went to Huaca Rajada, the site of 9 layers of Tombs. It was very interesting seeing the work that was done to excavate the tombs and the discoveries they made. The guide did an excellent job of explaining what was in the tombs and why and how it was possible to identify certain things. A tomb with a skeleton and a chalice in the right hand means that the tomb belongs to a priest. The Lords were buried with their prime wife, 1 or 2 concubines, a dog, soldiers, a llama, jewels, and decorative pots. the oldest lord was found with more than 2000 clay pots shaped like men and much ornate jewelry. His riches were mostly of copper, while the more recent lord was buried with gold and silver.

Afterwards we went to the city of Lambayeque, where we ate at a very nice restaurant, and I ordered something without rice, since we eat rice for every other meal. We then saw the cathedral and visited Tumbes Reales museum where we learned more about the Mochica and their history.

We then departed towards Tucume to see the pyramids. Along the way we were slowed up by a procession of people for one of the Virgins, highly regarded in this region. Once at Tucume we visited another museum, saw many large poisonous spiders on some cacti, and then got to hike half-way up one of the pyramids. This was my favorite part of the tour. The view from the pyramid was incredible. Pictures do not do it justice. It was so peaceful and the breeze was welcome. From the pyramid we could see many of the other pyramids as well as sugar cane fields, palm trees, banana trees, and rice fields for miles around.

On the way back, it took us 3 hours for what should have taken less than 45 minutes because of the chaos caused by people not abiding by the rules of the road and creating massive traffic jams in attempts to get around the people who were part of the procession. Oh the joys of traffic here =)