The Lord of Sipán - The Richest Tomb in Peru

Our next stop having left Chachapoyas was the city of Chiclayo, on Peru's north coast. We took a nightbus here from Chachapoyas, arriving at the antisocial hour of 4 am. It seems that most nightbuses in the north of Peru leave at around 8pm, regardless of the number of hours to the destination, so we've arrived before dawn several times!

Chiclayo is not the most pleasant of cities - it's big, busy and polluted. However, there are several amazing archaeological sites in the area, plus one of Peru's best museums, and we spent most of our time exploring these attractions.

View from Purgatory Hill at Túcume, near Chiclayo

A short colectivo (shared taxi) ride from Chiclayo is the town of Lambayeque, which is home to the Museo Tumbas Reales de Sipán. This museum showcases an incredible collection of treasures that were found in the Royal Tombs of Sipán (dating to about CE 300), a few km away. The discovery of these tombs in 1987 and their subsequent excavation was hugely significant in archaeology. The main tomb of the 14 tombs discovered at Sipán belonged to a great lord of the Moche culture - in fact the most important person of all, equivalent to a king. And unlike most pre-Incan graves, his tomb had been left intact, undiscovered by gravediggers.

This Lord of Sipan was so important that he was buried with hordes of ceramics, gold and silver objects, armour, offerings, animals and even several other people as his 'attendants' into the afterlife - the warriors that were buried with him had had their feet amputated, probably to render them incapable of leaving. The finds from just this one tomb took up an entire floor at the museum, with case after case of unbelievable riches. There were also recreations of several of the tombs as they originally looked when first excavated. It was all really interesting: you can see why these tombs have helped archaeologists such a lot to shed more light on the people and practices of the Moche culture. Sadly we weren't allowed to take any photos.

Pyramids at Túcume

Also near Chiclayo, we visited another site called Túcume. This huge complex of pyramids, now crumbling and covered in mud and sand so they just look like giant mounds scattered across the landscape, was originally built by a different culture - the Sican people (approx CE 800-1350). It continued being used as an important regional centre by the Chimu and later the Incas. At the centre of the site is a hill known as Purgatory Hill, which we climbed to get a great view of the sheer scale of the area.  Purgatory Hill has a story behind its name. At the start of the Spanish occupation of this area, the Spanish lit fires atop this hill and claimed it was purgatory. In an attempt to scare the locals into converting to Catholicism they even dressed as devils and threw non-believing locals to their deaths.

Part of the Sechín site at Casma

We headed down from Chiclayo to Lima via the small town of Casma in order to visit yet another amazing set of ruins (Peru is full of them!) In this case, it was the ancient site of Sechín, dating from around BCE 1600. Most of it is a heap of rubble, but the main temple building has been restored to some extent, and the most interesting feature is the incredible bas relief carvings that decorate all the stone blocks of the building's outer wall. These original carvings represent all sorts of gruesome scenes of war and human sacrifice, including people being beheaded and eviscerated. Little is known about the Sechín people but it doesn't sound like they were the nicest of folks!

Gruesome bas relief carvings at Sechín - note beheaded heads!

We've spent the last couple of days in Lima. Today we went to see the San Francisco Monastery, which has a library dating back to the 16th century. I was in my element and wished I could have opened some of the thousands of ancient books there (sadly you are only allowed to gawp at them from a distance!) Our guide told us some of the larger books have pages of animal skin and covers of wood, and weigh over 20 kg. Wow!

Strange carving of two heads on top of one another, at Sechín

Tomorrow we're leaving to Peru and flying down to Santiago and then onto Patagonia, where with Kev's leg now 100% we will finally be hitting the Torres del Paine National Park that we missed on our previous visit. Can't wait!

Smog, Coffee with Legs, Pinochet and Wine Tasting

Santiago is not the most picturesque of cities. Viewing it from the window of our 13th floor AirBnB apartment, or from the top of the nearby Santa Lucía hill, the main impression is of ugly, high rise concrete tower blocks and the all pervading smog. Yet as we have explored the city from the ground, we've realised there's more to it than we'd first perceived and it is actually an interesting and lively place to be.

The entrance to Santa Lucía hill 

We have spent much of our time here checking out the city's highlights with Louise, my friend who is in South America for a few weeks. On our second day here we did a free three hour walking tour around the city centre. This was well worth doing; our guide took us not only to the obvious places but to some more interesting ones - some of the city's most famous street art, for example. Perhaps the weirdest thing we learnt about is a popular style of coffee shop in Santiago - 'café con piernas'  or  'coffee with legs'! Type 1 of these cafés look like normal coffee shops. They are open from 9-6, and don't serve alcohol... but all the waitresses are dressed in exceedingly short skirts and high heels. Type 2 is a step up - they are still open daytime only and don't serve alcohol, but have blackened out glass and loud music playing. As we stood outside one of these listening to our guide, one of the waitresses emerged and waved - let's just say they were somewhat more scantily clad than type 1(bunny ears wouldn't have gone amiss)! As for type 3 - you don't get them in the city centre...

Smoggy view from the top of San Cristóbal, with the Andes just visible

We've also taken the funicular railway to the top of Cerro San Cristóbal, the highest hill in Santiago, from where you get a great, if hazy, view of the city. We could even see the tops of the Andes emerging from the smog. Nearby is La Chascona, one of the three homes in Chile of the nation's Nobel prizewinning poet Pablo Neruda. Neruda built the house in 1953 for his secret lover, Matilde Urrutia and named it after her (Chascona means dishevelled hair, a reference to Matilde's wild red curls). The house has been left much as it was and is evidence of Neruda's quirky taste and his love of the sea: the long, narrow downstairs dining room and bar with low ceiling are designed to look like a ship.

Walking up towards the Immaculate Conception statue at the top of San Cristóbal hill

Kev and I visited the Museo de la Memoria y los Derechos Humanos (Musuem of Memory and Human Rights), which was an absorbing insight into the 1973 coup, the death of the socialist president Salvador Allende and the following Pinochet regime that lasted until 1990. Some of the images of the torture and human rights abuse that took place were shocking, as were the figures we learned as to the impact of the dictatorship on the Chilean people - over 3,000 deaths, nearly 40,000 people tortured or imprisoned and 200,000 people exiled from the country. Controversy continues today as to the legacy of both Allende and Pinochet.

Wine tasting at Emiliana winery, in the Casablanca Valley

We escaped the city for a day with some more wine tasting in the Casablanca region, an hour or so away. Getting here by bus and then walking to three wineries was easy and a lot cheaper than all the advertised tours. We sat in the sun sampling wines and admiring the beautiful vineyards. Casablanca is known for its whites and the Gran Reserva Chardonnay at Quilmay winery was my favourite of the day - the reds were pretty good too!

The Lengths We Will Go to See a Waterfall

We'd decided that we wanted to spend a day seeing the waterfalls in the Siete Tazas (Seven Cups) National Park. Unfortunately, it wasn't going to be that easy - there is only one bus there every day and it leaves Molina at 5pm. It returns at 7:30am the next morning. Therefore, to have time to actually see the park at all, we would have to spend two nights there.

The Velo de Novia (Bridal Veil) waterfall, close to the national park

As we were in Talca, we would first have to get to Molina for the solitary bus at 5pm. We were told that there were regular buses there, so we turned up at the bus station at just after 3. However, this happened to be the only gap in the schedule - there wasn't another bus until 4. We sat impatiently on this one and might just have arrived in time, if the bus hadn't got a puncture just outside of Molina. In desperation, we tried to hitchhike into town, and the first thing that arrived was another bus. It rattled ominously and struggled to get out of second gear for the rest of the journey. We arrived at the bus station 10 minutes too late.

The 20m Salta de la Leona (Lioness) waterfall

Molina is not a town geared up for tourists, but we did manage to find a dirty, but dirt cheap, guesthouse and, amazingly, a place selling craft beer. We got up early in the morning as we had been advised that there was a bus that would take us some of the way towards the park, and then we could hitchhike the rest of the way. The bus part went successfully; the hitchhiking part started less well. We stood shivering on the roadside in darkness until the sun rose an hour or so later. Only two cars passed in two hours; neither stopped. Eventually, a pickup truck did pull over for us, threw our bags in under the tarp and on top of the goat, and we were off. For some of the way. They seemed to be delivering the tied up goat to their friend, just 7km further down the road. Soon after though, we were picked up by a visiting Chileno family and taken the rest of the way. We'd made it! And the seven waterfalls were fine.

The Siete Tazas waterfalls, and their cups - the object of the arduous journey

From the national park, we had to be up before dawn once again for the one morning bus back to Molina. It was somewhat surreal walking by torchlight into the pitch black village and seeing the bus materialise out of the darkness. From Molina we took another bus to Curicó and a final one to Santa Cruz. Santa Cruz is the heart of the Colchagua Valley wine region and, although difficult to get to, the vineyards produce fine red wines. Particularly of the full bodied variety we're both most keen on. We enjoyed some lengthy tasting sessions, even if one was interrupted part way through by a small earthquake sending a jolt through the room.

So much wine!

We've now moved on again, up to the capital, Santiago. We're hoping to see some of the cultural sights around here but mix it up with some more wine tasting in the nearby Casablanca and Maipo regions.