Optional Extension for Chachapoyas
F.D. Kunturwasi
Visit this ceremonial centre of formative periodo (1200-50 BC) of ancient Andean civilization with an architectural complex and stone monoliths. Includes: Transportation from Cajamarca to Kunturwasi, Box lunch, entrance fee and transportation to Trujillo’s airport to take the night flight to Lima.
One more day in Cajamarca
It includes an additional day to explore different parts of the city and visit Cumbemayo where we will admire the Hidraulic knownledge ( a canal cut into rock) from the Incas use for the management of water and land. Includes : an extra night at Cajamarca, private transportation, guide and entrance fees.
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Trujillo Extension for Chachapoyas Explorer
Day 07
You will depart Cajamarca in the morning via private car/bus for the overland journey down through the mountains to Trujillo. Early afternoon arrival and visit the colonial city of Trujillo. Overnight at Libertador Hotel.
Day 08
After breakfast visit the beautiful Moche Sun and Moon temples, the continue to the beach for a relaxing lunch in the town of Huanchaco. After lunch you will visit Chan Chan, the sprawling ruined city of the Chimu culture. At the end of the afternoon you will transfer to the airport to take the flight to Lima.
Notes: The pyramids of the Sun and Moon, just south of Trujillo, are the largest structures ever built in South America, and are second in the Western Hemisphere only to the Pyramid of Cholula, Mexico, in size. They formed the spiritual center of the Moche Empire, a highly sophisticated yet mysterious culture that pre-dated the Incas by nearly 1000 years. It is quite certain that the Moche Indians had contact with other civilizations in the ancient Americas, and there is good reason to believe they may have been influenced by Asian ocean-going voyagers as well.
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The Pyramid of the Moon contains a central, vaulted chamber, and the mountain directly behind, Cerro Blanco, appears to have been shaped by humans into a pyramid form as well.
Despite their achievements in architecture, metal-working, and ceramics (one can still find countless pottery shards in the sands surrounding the site), the Moche were very militaristic, and scenes from their pottery depict ritual bloodletting and torture. They may have evolved a system of “black” magic that aided them in their conquests of neighboring peoples, or they may have taken spiritual teachings from Asia and twisted their meanings into bizarre new practices over the centuries.
Huanchaco is a fishing town where “caballitos de totoro” are still used by the local inhabitants, who venture into the cold currents of the Pacific in these precarious-looking reed boats.
This massive adobe city, really a series of royal compounds built by the Chimu, was a major source of gold for both the Incas, and later, for the Spanish. Though well-looted over the centuries, gold artifacts still occasionally appear in the drifting sands.
Contacts between Chan Chan and the Asian continent have never been proven, but there are tantalizing hints. Pottery figures depict Asiatic men with beards and turbans; even the name “Chan Chan” seems to be Chinese in origin. Don’t miss the famous “honeycombs,” where strange acoustic effects allow visitors to whisper to each other over long distances inside the adobe structures.