Since I had a few extra days for the Semana Santa (Holy Week) holiday, I wanted to travel beyond the limits of what I had seen before. A friend suggested wandering through the central highlands-mainly around Tarma, which, by all accounts, has a fantastic Semana Santa celebration-to the central jungle, ending up in Oxapampa. I thought it was a great plan. Unfortunately, the weather didn't agree...
For those of you that may not know what's happening here in Perú, it has been raining in the central region. Unfortunately due to the El niño effect, it has been raining more than usual and causing devastating landslides throughout the region. A state of emergency was even declared by the President of Perú.
Being that we would have had to pass through this area on our journey to the jungle, we had to alter our plans. Plans B (Huaraz) and C (Cajamarca) were discussed and discarded and we ended up on Plan D (the North Coast). Of course, since we changed plans last minute, we had very little time to do any planning, but we managed to enjoy ourselves despite that. I got to eat more great food-arroz con pato (rice with duck), tortilla de mantaraya (this is kind of like an omelette with pieces of manta ray), ceviche with different kinds of fish, and, of course, lots of chicha de joya; I got to see more pre-Incan ruins; and I got a nice sunburn from the beach.
Chiclayo and the neighboring towns, Lambayeque, Ferreñafe, and Túcume have some great museums to visit and we took advantage of that fact. First we went to see the Museo Nacional Sicán, a museum dedicated to Sicán culture. Sicán culture thrived between 750 and 1375 AD, right between the two sites I visited previously.
It houses replicas of two tombs:
The Sicán people were skilled in ceramics and metalworking, using molds to mass-produce items. They introduced the Bronze Age to the North Coast of Perú.
The museum was great! We even got to see a special demonstration:
I got to make friends with one of the Peruvian hairless dogs there.
That night, we watched the processional for Good Friday:
The next day we decided to take a tour to visit all of the Sipán sites. It ended up being an all day trip, but we really enjoyed it. The sites in Sipán are all from Moche culture, like the Huaca del Sol y la Luna near Trujillo. First, we visited the Museo de sitio Túcume, from whose location you can see many of the huacas, not all of which have been excavated yet.
It was a pretty neat little museum with a lot of hands-on exhibits. I was pretty excited that all of the signs were in both Spanish and English!
Then we moved on to the Museo de las Tombas Reales de Sipán. This museum was built specifically to house the archaeological finds from the Huaca Rajada. It mostly centers around the tomb of El Señor de Sipán, a local nobleman. We weren´t allowed to take cameras, or even bags, inside, so we could only take photos of the outside of the building.
Our last stop was the Huaca Rajada itself. Though the actual items are housed in the museum, they did set up replicas in the actual tombs, so that you could visualize what it looked like when it was discovered.
Being that we would have had to pass through this area on our journey to the jungle, we had to alter our plans. Plans B (Huaraz) and C (Cajamarca) were discussed and discarded and we ended up on Plan D (the North Coast). Of course, since we changed plans last minute, we had very little time to do any planning, but we managed to enjoy ourselves despite that. I got to eat more great food-arroz con pato (rice with duck), tortilla de mantaraya (this is kind of like an omelette with pieces of manta ray), ceviche with different kinds of fish, and, of course, lots of chicha de joya; I got to see more pre-Incan ruins; and I got a nice sunburn from the beach.
Chiclayo and the neighboring towns, Lambayeque, Ferreñafe, and Túcume have some great museums to visit and we took advantage of that fact. First we went to see the Museo Nacional Sicán, a museum dedicated to Sicán culture. Sicán culture thrived between 750 and 1375 AD, right between the two sites I visited previously.
It houses replicas of two tombs:
The Sicán people were skilled in ceramics and metalworking, using molds to mass-produce items. They introduced the Bronze Age to the North Coast of Perú.
The museum was great! We even got to see a special demonstration:
I got to make friends with one of the Peruvian hairless dogs there.
That night, we watched the processional for Good Friday:
The next day we decided to take a tour to visit all of the Sipán sites. It ended up being an all day trip, but we really enjoyed it. The sites in Sipán are all from Moche culture, like the Huaca del Sol y la Luna near Trujillo. First, we visited the Museo de sitio Túcume, from whose location you can see many of the huacas, not all of which have been excavated yet.
It was a pretty neat little museum with a lot of hands-on exhibits. I was pretty excited that all of the signs were in both Spanish and English!
Then we moved on to the Museo de las Tombas Reales de Sipán. This museum was built specifically to house the archaeological finds from the Huaca Rajada. It mostly centers around the tomb of El Señor de Sipán, a local nobleman. We weren´t allowed to take cameras, or even bags, inside, so we could only take photos of the outside of the building.
Our last stop was the Huaca Rajada itself. Though the actual items are housed in the museum, they did set up replicas in the actual tombs, so that you could visualize what it looked like when it was discovered.
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