Huaca de la Luna & Chan Chan

Leaving Huaraz was difficult as it was such a beautiful place and the hiking was nothing short of amazing however it was time to head north to the coastal town of Trujillo. Trujillo would be the beginning of my journey through a few of the many pre-columbian ruins that occupy the area.

Arriving there first thing in the morning I checked into my hostel and immediately headed out by collectivo (easy enough to catch and only 1.80 soles) to Huaca de La Luna & Sol, two giant mud brick temples built by the Moche people in the few centuries AD. The Huaca de Sol was the largest man made structure in the western hemisphere before sadly the Spanish destroyed large parts of it in their endless yet unrewarded search for treasure. Nowadays the only temple that is visitable is the the Huaca de la Luna, a temple that looked like very little as we walked towards it but we wanted to check it out anyway. We were very glad we did as the entry fee included a guide and he was both amusing and informative as he was studying the culture.

The ruins were quite remarkable in the fact that they are not being restored, rather being conserved. This made the condition of some of the artwork and structures all the more impressive, well preserved by the desert sand & wind. This coupled with the fact that they continually built over the top of one kingdom created some incredible sights. However because of this you can currently only see the third and fourth kingdom structures and given their condition one can only imagine how incredible the kingdoms below must look like.

After this we followed up with a visit to the best local seafood restaurant in town (Mar Picante) which all the locals recommended for some cebiche. The restaurant lived up to its reputation and the cebiche was superb and also nice and cheap – its really hard to justify not eating cebiche when your on the coast such is the quality here.

The next day it was off to see some more pre-columbian ruins, the ruins of Chan Chan built around 850 AD by the Chimbu people an off shoot of the Moche race with the same strong belief in the duality of the sea and land. The ruins here are very different to that at Huaca though as they have been largely restored from their best guess as the majority of the complex was destroyed over time.

The site however was supposedly the biggest adobe brick (mud brick) city in the world and is also the largest pre-columbian ruins, strolling around it is certainly incredible to see the size of the complex. The giant walls that surround the complex dwarf you on entry and the sheer size of the plazas is incredible – it must have been awe inspiring in its day. The walls are decorated with patterns that evolved from the Moche people, namely depictions of birds, fish and nets amongst other things – very intricate in their current form.

After visiting the ruins I jumped back on the collective to visit the little coastal town of Huanchaco famous for its cebiche and for its surfing fisherman. The fisherman had well and truly retired by the time I got there but the cebiche was still fresh and the beer was cold and as result the rest of the afternoon was well spent.
Getting to Chan Chan is easy enough using a collectivo from the roundabout in town with the collectivos passing by the site. The collectivo then continues further down the road towards Huanchaco the entire trip from Trujillo to Huanchaco is less than 5 soles.