August 15, 2018 – August 17, 2018

We headed back to the coast.  We would have preferred to stay in the mountains, but after seeing what the main highways could be like in the mountains, and seeing that the alternative mountain route to our next planned destination would take us onto secondary and tertiary roads, we decided to stick to some more developed highways even though it was a longer route.

We arrived in Huanchaco, a small fishing village on the coast that has in recent times become popular with tourists.  Huanchaco is one of the few remaining villages on the coast of Peru where the fishermen still make the narrow reed boats that Peruvians have been using for more than 2,000 years.  (Images of these reed boats are found in the pottery and friezes uncovered by archeologists in the area.)  The town is also popular with surfers and has some great ceviche restaurants.

We left Huanchaco, driving through the small city of Trujillo.  Here is a video of part of that drive.  The city decided to close our lane after the intersection for some road repairs, so traffic was routed into half of the oncoming lanes, but there were absolutely no signs telling people what was going on…..

 

After finally getting through Trujillo, we visited Huacas del Luna y Sol, the Temples of the Moon and the Sun.  These temples were built over 6 centuries to 600 AD by the Moche people.  Huaca del Sol, which we viewed from Huaca del Luna, is the largest  single pre-Colombian structure in Peru, as the temples were built out of adobe bricks, about a third of it has been washed away.  It is estimated that the temple was made of 140 million adobe bricks. The bricks typically have inscriptions on them indicating who the maker of the brick was.

 

The entrance fee included a guided tour of the site.  We would have had to wait for the english tour, and we had some miles still to make that day, so we joined the Spanish tour.  We didn’t catch every detail but understood enough to really enjoy the tour.

The smaller Huaca del Luna was the temple that we were able to visit on the tour.  Over the centuries new leaders would initiate expansions of the temple complex completely re-covering  the preceding layer.  Excavations have uncovered incredible friezes that have been preserved by the subsequent layer that was built over top of them.

 

Our plan was to head south along the coast and then east, back into the mountains.  We were driving through a small town when Derek spotted some large 20 litre bottles of water for sale.  We have been buying these big bottles of water all along on our trip and pouring the purified water into our reserve tank in the camper.

We stopped and bought 3 bottles from Victor, a Peruvian man, perhaps in his seventies.  He was very excited to be selling us water.  As Derek poured the water into the camper tank, Victor was on the phone, telling someone about the Gringo truck that had stopped to buy HIS water.

His Spanish was difficult to understand, but we soon figured out that Victor wanted a photo of us with the truck and the empty water bottles, but his phone did not have a camera and could we wait for his brother to arrive.  We still had a long drive ahead of us, but we told him we could wait for a bit.  No one came, more phone calls were made, then Victor asked us if we could drive, with the bottles and him up the road a few hundred metres.  He jumped onto our running boards and held on (as I held on to his arm through the window, terrified that we might lose him).

We stopped outside of a small home and out came a woman with a camera.  Several photos were taken of us with Victor and the truck and the empty water bottles.

Then Victor took us into his home to show us his pride and joy, a room filled with religious iconography and dolls in the likeness of Jesus, some of them being 2 or 3 feet tall.  But wait, there was more!  He then took us to his neighbour’s home, the residence of the woman who had operated the camera for the photo shoot.  We were lead through a front storage room, then through a living room, into an outer courtyard, and then into a room on the side of the courtyard.  There we saw another shrine, this one being at floor level, consisting of a small, low walled area, filled with sand, in which there were many, many items:  crosses, small swords, pottery that they said had been found at some nearby ancient sites, other apparently ancient artifacts, the skeleton of an 3 – 4 ft wingspan eagle, posed as if in flight, candles, photographs, small wooden dolls, ceramic and glass beads, corked coloured glass bottles with various tinctures and dried plants….and many more items that I cannot remember.

The gentleman who maintained this shrine, Rigoberto, instructed us to sit and we were given swords and crosses to hold, and a wooden doll of a Peruvian man was sat on my lap.  More photos were taken (really hoping that doll wasn’t some sort of fertility symbol!).  Then Rigoberto told Victor to go get the special water.  Rose and sandalwood scented, alcohol and water infusion was poured into our palms and we were instructed to snort the water.  We did, and it may have helped to clear some of the Peruvian desert sand from our sinuses.  Then Rigoberto poured the rose water/alcohol on our heads and said some words.  I think that Rigoberto was some sort of local Shaman, and that we had just received a complimentary blessing or cleansing, I am not sure which.

On the wall opposite the shrine among other posters and official certificates was a calendar with two bare breasted, blond, California type, young women.  It was odd to see this across from the shrine, but instead of detracting from the authenticity of the moment, it actually added to it.  We all know someone with a “girly” calendar in their workshop or garage, and this was Rigoberto’s work shop.

We waved goodbye, drove for a few kilometres in total silence, taking in what had just occurred, the scent of rose water settling around us in the cab of the truck. At least Piper didn’t start to bark at us!