Urubamba

Pictures taken on the way from Cusco to Urubamba.

The crops most frequently grown in this area are maise, potato, sweet potato and corn.

Panoramic of Cusco.

I do not know if this will get edited down by the host, but here is a panoramic stitched from 5 photos taken from an over look of Cusco on the 16th.

It did edit this down on the upload.  The original has about 10x the pixels.  Still a nice image tough.

Chan Chan Peru

Chan Chan is the name for a set of ruins just outside of Trujillo Peru.  It is the original name of the place and translates as Sun Sun.  The city was a major and thriving place of the Chimu, but when they were conquered by the Inca in the late 1400s it slowly faded away.

When the Spanish came to power in the area, they established the walled town of Trujillo less then five miles away.  This makes me scratch my head a little.  They went through a lot of effort to establish a new town, wall it, dig wells and all of that instead of clearing out the sand from around the walls of Chan Chan.  the major difference would have been in the size and construction of the walls.  Chan Chan is from a pre-gunpowder era and though the walls are both high and strong, they are not designed to either withstand cannon nor have people walk along the top.

My view is though that they really did not need to withstand cannon in this area, but the adding of a walk way along the top of the wall would have been much less effort than creating a whole new wall.  In addition to that, it would have placed them on top of the looting grounds instead of five miles away.  The Spanish looted quite a few of the graves of Chan Chan, and records claim they took out approx the modern equivalent of $5,000,000 in gold.

The original colours of the place quickly fade when exposed to the elements, and what is left is the natural colour of the clay.  The dominant colours before time and exposure got to them were gold on the walls and bas relief items and white on the floors.

The wall on the right is the exterior wall, with a lower wall on the left separating it from the city and giving a road that went the whole way around the city.

Fish were one of the staple foods, and are shown in the stylized waves, while below them the pelican which the Chimu used to fish for them, much like the cormorant is used in Asia is also displayed in many places.

Fishing nets were also woven from the reeds pictured above, and were given much prominence in the decoration and construction of the walls and dividing areas, including use as windows in some of the domestic areas.

The well above is quite large and part of the area was given over the the growing of the reeds.  The wells were dug to around four meters below the average ground level and were very reliable both in quantity and high quality of water.  Over 17 wells were active in side the walls, with this one being an example of the larger ones, and I did not get the chance to photograph any of the smaller domestic wells.

For the rulers, tombs are unearthed above were created.  After internment, additional celebrations were held and objects of wealth were added for a period of ten years.  After that, the tomb would be sealed.

And last for this post, sea otters.

On the Road Again

I have not written on the blog in quite some time.

I spent a lot of the summer in Canada not doing much, merely hanging out with various friends and family.  It was very fine, but also felt a little bit like I was wasting my time, waiting for the traveling to start again.

I flew from Saskatoon to Lima Peru and then from Lima to Trujillo, and sat on my butt in trujillo not doing much.

So, it is time to get moving a little again, and time to post a few pictures, first from around Trujillo, then tomorrow a few from Chan Chan, a set of ruins just outside of Trujillo.

First up, a couple pictures from Plaza De Armas, the central public square of Trujillo.

The traffic through the square is quite busy, and one of the roads leading East-ish from the square is closed to vehicle traffic and is lined with small and medium sized shops.

My local guide on the walking tour of Trujillo also lead me to the university, the gate most used by the student is the following one, it was hard to get a decent shot and thus the two pictures.

And last up are a few pictures from the mosaic that goes around at least two sides of the university, a distance according to the guide of over two kilometers.  What is likely the largest mosaic in the Americas.