Back to the other side of the equator

It has been a little over two weeks now that I have been back in Peru and things are as crazy as usual. When I arrived at the airport, I was expecting a couple of my friends to be there waiting for me, but I couldn´t find any of them. I walked around a while, and then started to make phone calls. First I called Mauricio, my buddy who I hadn´t seen in six years. He was home in bed, sick. Then I tried to call Guille, another friend from six years ago...no answer. Meanwhile, this Israeli guy, Alon, comes up to me and asks if I am going to take a taxi somewhere and if he can go in the same taxi. Here, his bags were lost, his friends were on a flight that was delayed until the next day, and he had no where to go. I said sure, but that I wanted to wait a little longer for my friends to show up. Twenty minutes or so went by, and there appears Jose (a friend from last year), Guille and Angela (Guille´s girlfriend from Belgium). They invited Alon to stay at their house, since Guille´s mom, sister and nieces all moved out and there was lots of space. We all jumped in a taxi, went back to the house and sat around talking, eating canchita, and drinking a bottle of whiskey. I think it was a pretty crazy first night in South America for Alon!!!

I stayed in Lima for a week, visiting some friends in the neighborhood and hanging out with Mauricio. We celebrated Angela´s birthday with a huge amount of ceviche and beer. Ceviche is one of the best Peruvian plates- raw fish, onions, garlic, hot peppers, lots of lime, cilantro and parsley. Then we decided to go to the beach to get some sun. Jose, Guille, Angela and I took a bus 8 hours to the north to Trujillo, a big city and then a taxi to Huanchaco.

Huanchaco is a little fishing village where surf originated. The people since the times of the Mochica Indians...something B.C., made reed rafts the have really pointy fronts and that they kneel on the back of. The boats break through the waves or surf on them, and the fishermen use a huge bamboo oar. Needless to say we ate a lot of seafood during the week there!! It was really cloudy most of the time and cold, so we only went swimming once and it wasn´t for very long! It was nice to relax and be somewhere quiet. The hotel we stayed at was beachfront and had some really nice gardens and trees, as well as a kitchen that we could use (only because we were the only people there!).

One day we walked along the beach to sneak into Chan Chan the back ways. It was an hour and a half walk and really windy. Before we made it to the ruins, crossing the desert, we crossed a group of workers and archeologists. There we recontructing fish farms that the Incans had used. Some of them would have fish, others, lobsters, shrimp, etc. The Incans had created a system that carried the water out from under the Chan Chan temples and into the fish farms and their surround crops. This is the water that was filling the stone ponds. In the process of recontructing, they came across more ruins, of the actual canals that carried the water (within the last two weeks). They were really excited to tell us about their work, and then took us to one of the temples where more archeologists are working. In the end we got a guided tour of all of the parts of Chan Chan that are not open to the public.

Chan Chan was constructed by the Chimu culture entirely of adobe. There are a lot of temples, plazas, and really amazing relief designs. There are walls surrounding all of the temples that are between 12 and 16 feet wide. The Chimu were eventually conquered by the Incans in the 1400s.

Another day we went to the ruins Huaca de la Luna and Huaca del Sol. There were a bit farther away and belong to a different culture, that of the Moche people. The Huaca de Sol is closed off because of raiders, but we got to walk around in the Huaca de la Luna. It served mainly as a ceremonial site, where the people would prepare and make offerings. Every 80 or 100 years they would fill in the existing contruction with adobe bricks and build a new construction on top. It was possible to see 5 different layers, walking around. The Moche people also used a lot of mineral paints to decorate the Huaca. Mostly, there were animal and geometrical designs. It was in remarkably good shape considering its location in the desert.

Afterwards we stoped in the village called Moche to drink Chica. Chicha is a fermented corn drink that has been passed down since the days of the Incas. Chicha is a lot different in the north than the chicha that I have drank in Cuzco and in the south. It is a little sweeter and not so heavy. We drank two pitchers (with cost all of 50 cents a piece) and all felt fine until we stood up and realized we were all pretty trashed. It was funny. The chicharia was at a womans house who had the usual chickens and hens running around and the newest batch of chicha boiling in a 50 gallon drum over a wood fire.