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Chiclayo is the big city compared to everywhere else so far. The roads seemed full of taxis with their horns blaring endlessly and choc-a-bloc with combis and buses with conductors hanging out of the doors shouting out their routes. The streets were crowded with vendors ranging from shoeshine boys; moneychangers waving wads of currency under your nose (with seemingly no fear of robbery or visible security); old women with trays and baskets of American biscuits and chocolate; through to men with covered carts and stalls selling fruit, soft drinks, cigarettes and magazines. Add to that hordes of pedestrians, and it made walking anywhere a bit of an obstacle course. For some reason, I felt a little threatened by all the hard sell and crowds after the previous few days in more sleepy, easy-going parts. |
View of Tucume from Purgatory.
30km from Chiclayo are the adobe ruins of Tucume. We climbed to the top of a hill called Cerro La Raya or Purgatory for a terrific view of the site, which consists of adobe pyramids, citadels and houses. Sadly, Tucume has been badly eroded by unusually high levels of rain in recent years, mainly due, we were told, to El Nino. |
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Tucume Pyramid.
The Huaca Larga pyramid (I think). I have to admit to being a little underwhelmed by Tucume, perhaps because when Mark (the guide) said we were going to see some pyramids I pictured in my mind something along the lines of the Aztec ones. Maybe my expectations were not realistic after seeing the grandeur of Kuelap. |
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View from Sican Pyramid.
We were meant to go to the new Lord of Sipan museum but it was so new that it hadn't opened to the public yet. Instead we went to see Sican, which consisted of another badly eroded adobe pyramid which they let us climb up (with twinges of guilt about adding to the erosion), and a new (open) museum which exhibited the gold and other artefacts found with the Lord of Sican at the pyramid. |
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