It’s our last day headed for Chimbote, our entrance to the Andes. The day’s track
But first we head off to Chan Chan.
It was a city of 30,000 built around AD 850 by the Chimu, who were later conquered by the Inca in AD1470. Then, of course the Spanish arrived and did the usual 90 years later. Looking it up, there’s a huge amount written about Chan Chan so a summation would be hard. But it’s the biggest adobe structure ever built. It covered 20 square kilometers, city size. Among other things it was significant for novel irrigation, burial traditions, unique architecture and the speculation of how this large and isolated city functioned as a society/
The drive in through low ruins
The core city outer walls
Passageways
And countless variations. You could walk around inside the main walls but I wasn’t going to leave Lucinda in a remote parking lot surrounded by hawkers, guides and ticket sellers.
But here was my first look at the famous Peruvian hairless dog. They have no hair. In all fairness to the poor animal I won’t say what I thought he looked like
The breed dates back to pre-Inca times, at least 1300 years. There are three different varieties (perhaps somewhat-gross, gross and totally-gross)
Back in the desert it was mountainous and stunning
Sand valleys between thousand foot peaks
Beside a small river there was a small farming community. This pic has everything in it: horses, a donkey, cows and (penned) pigs
Closing in on our destination we stopped to have a look at this interesting small town. Not afraid of color
Picking up on the orange
It looks like this fellow persuaded his neighbours to go with the blue theme
I’ll drop the Peruvian architecture thing there. The point being they’re brave individuals
Arriving at our destination, Chimbote, there’s the biggest fishing fleet I’ve ever seen. It crosses a bay a couple of miles across. There must be some story on this
Here’s a close-up of the density
Sure enough, it’s one of the world’s remaining giant fleets. 1000 ships, $2 billion in anchovies, mostly for fertilizer.
Chimbote is a huge dump.
Tomorrow’s a day I’ve been looking forward to since arriving in Peru.
Saludos
Comments
Back from Italy and I see you are in Peru. I don’t know if you would find this offensive but you seem to me to be like a shark: always moving forward. What a wondrous journey you are on.