Chan Chan

The Moche or Mohica people thrived on the coast of Peru from about 900 to 1470 when the new Inca Empire spread from Cusco and the original 100,000 Incas took over the lives of ten million South Americans. 

The Moche capital was Chan Chan, a vast walled adobe city in the heart of their nation that is still being explored and uncovered today. For three bucks apiece we got to wander at will and check out this extraordinary spot pretty much by ourselves.

It was a relief to leave modern Peru in the parking lot and take a walk in a clean serene environment that filled us with wonder.

This was a well ordered society built as always on sacrifice (often human) and work but the details of how they lived are mostly gleaned from how they died and their belief in an afterlife that required entombing wealthy people with items from their daily lives, including killing and burying their personal slaves to attend them in the afterlife. 

The Incas are often portrayed as rather kindly empire builders but from what I’ve read that is not exactly so but they were nowhere near the barbaric greed and cruelty of the illiterate Spanish who showed up in 1532 and murdered enslaved tortured and terrified on an epic scale. 

The lust for power and wealth through slavery and Christianity led the Spanish to not only wipe out ancient lives and customs but to not record what had gone before. 

The friars that accompanied the invasion made some notes and left partial written histories of what they found but that’s how we know some stuff about the Incas. These people who came before got no write ups and it’s a shame.

Peruvian archeologists are still at work but I can’t imagine it’s easy finding funding in a country that won’t provide the basics for its people. I find it hugely ironic that the Moche provided food, water and shelter in this arid climate and gave their people a coherent and ordered purpose for living but modern Peru is a huge step back for inhabitants we can see struggling to manage the basics. 

I imagined some bricklayer a thousand years ago doing the same work we see them doing today. You can even see finger marks in the adobe cement. It made the Moche very real. 

A short distance away is the associated museum where artifacts are catalogued and put on display. The Moche art we saw had a level of refinement that surprised me.

They sculpted  wood and used colored stones as inlaid adornments. These people were driving large on the coast of Peru a thousand years ago. 

And after all that we drive 40 minutes through modern chaotic Peru to the temples (huaca) of sun and moon. This is Cerro Blanco and you might be surprised to learn God lives there, at least the Moche deity did. 

On the lower slopes of the white hill lies the excavated temple of the moon.  In the valley below that was where hoi polloi lived and carried out the functions of living that allowed the rich and the priests to carry out the necessary obeisances to the deity. Across the valley is another mound which is the temple of the sun reserved for upper class Moche. 

In between we stopped for a lunch of home made chicken rolls aboard GANNET2 in the shade of a feeble thorn bush adorned with the usual plastic detritus.

This one is guarded by a statue of the Peruvian hairless dog that is such a cultural symbol. 

Real live ones freak out our poor Rusty who seems to be firmly of the opinion that normal dogs should have hair. He’s right too, this isn’t the climate for these poor creatures and cast off t-shirts while well meant don’t add to their dignity. 

Back to the museum with its examples of refined Moche art. 

When the weather turned to crap and wrecked crops the Movhe leaders didn’t simply shrug and say oh well but they acted. El Niño years when rains came and flooded or went and caused drought perturbed them such that they did what shy right thinking leader would do. 

They organized ritual sacrifices to kill off a few young warriors and offer up their blood to the god that lived in the hill. As cure all I have no idea how well it worked but it was a big deal, an epic production. The hand picked young warriors would fight with clubs and shields and those who lost their helmets and got grabbed by the hair lost. You can see them above bound naked with the rope of shame round their necks. Below you can see one getting led to jail by the winner. 

Then they’d wait in the condemned cell a few days until the priests figured the signs were right and they’d be led to sacrifice. Below you see the wooden club used to beat them to death. The black markings thousand year old human blood science tells us. Alternatively the  priests cut their throats and trained their blood for use as an offering. 

Then they chopped them up and bury them. As a response to bad weather it seems a bit extreme to me but most people do need their rituals. 

Aside from the drama this was an orderly society that left behind traces of true civilization and I keep

pondering what Peru would be capable of if its leaders trusted its people. These genes can’t all be lost surely. 

Check this out and this fascinated me. It’s what muralists call a cartoon, a plan sketched on an adobe tablet for wall decorations for a building.  Someone actually held this while damp and drew in proportion what the boss wanted in a wall. 

Some people claim they sense spiritual energy in these places but for me the connection to the past, the similarity in the details to our lives today is what fascinates me and the immutable nature of simply being human.

We drive back to the rather unpleasant city of Trujillo which enjoys the reputation of not being safe after dark. There is a Costco like store in Peru called Makro and we wanted to check it out but Layne found it not really useful for us as it sells too much stuff in bulk. I cleaned GANNET2 in the peace and quiet of the guarded parking lot while she shipped and Rusty napped in the grass. 

Interestingly enough two creeps yelled at us as we drove with the windows down yelling that we had a problem with our tire. It’s a common trick in Latin America as the idiot gringo stops and either gets jumped or gets his tire punctured and has to pay to get it repaired. I smiled and gave both of them the bird. Their hearts weren’t in it anyway but it’s the first time so done has tried that on this journey and a flea pit like Trujillo was the perfect spot for it to happen. 

A nice highway for two hours south to the town of Santa was our reward. We’d got dog food and filled our water tank and Trujillo was far behind. Lovely. 

IOverlander mentioned this gas station as a safe overnight spot. 

It was busy until about ten and then after an easy  dinner of ramen and some TV we slept until five when the trucks left. And we followed heading inland to the city of Caraz in the Cordillera Blanca - the White Mountain Range