A moche pyramid

A complex Moche site, basically a royal city.

Kelly with Verdy

Just a quick update. We are settling into Chiclayo, we havn´t seen another gringo since we got here on Monday! It is a nice city though, although we have witnessed our first crime. Sesar (sp?) one of the Canatura volunteers came to pick us up and take us to the house where we would be giving our first English lesson and someone just ripped off his bum-bag (fanny-pack) and took off with it. It happened so fast we didn´t have time to react! Anyway since then I and Kelly have been taking extra special care with our bags. We had been careful before but this was a wake up call as up to now the overwhelming impression I had was that Peruvians were very curtious and honest. It is a shame, I don´t want to be eyeing up everyone on the street with distrustful eyes, but better safe than sorry. The group of volunteers we are teaching english are young peruvians who voluntarily take school children out of field trips to teach them about the amazing natural wealth of Peru and the importance of preserving it. They also do some environmental awareness festivals. Peru apparently has the 2nd largest number of endemic birds in the world, partly due to its varied environment, going from low coastal desert, to high jungle in the andes to the amazon rain forest on the other side. It seems there is very little official efforts to protect what they have. The hunting of birds of prey for sale in rich western markets is one problem close to sesars heart. He specialises in raptors including the massive harpy eagle which they have here in Peru. Our host, Edivali (who is the local canatura chapter leader) has been kind enough to take us on a few sight seeing trips, one to the museum of ´the lord of sipan´ which contained many wonderful gold and shell bits and bobs from the tomb of a Moche king which was found nearby. The story of the discovery of the tomb is like an Indiana Jones story with arceologists and police battling robbers culminating in the death of the robber leader. Anyway most of the priceless artefacts were saved and a good thing too. The Moche culture rules over the northern coastal desert of Peru and were a major pre Inca civilisation here. Their metal working skills were amazing and the gold jewelery of the king was stunning. Their pottery was also very good, often it depected animals in a very life like manner, I was impressed. They biuld huge truncated pyramids out of adobe bricks which when they weathered looked just like large hills and so escaped detection until recently. The musuem was well laid out and the guide entusiastic and informative but photos where not allowed so you will have to take my word for how great it was. It is also always interesting to hear about the human sacrifices and blood drinking that their religious and cultural activities revolved around. OK time is almost up.

Cherio!