ChiclayoAug 16, 2009
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| Chiclayo, home of more tombs and more archeological sites. These ones were of Moche origins as well I believe. People come from all over the world to see the Royal Tombs museum in Sipan. It is reputed to be one of the world´s 10 best museums, which I would not dispute. It is definitely one of the better museums I have seen. This time we encountered no problems in terms of people scamming us. One of the easiest trips yet. We spent a couple of days. Our first day was spent orienting ourselves and arranging our tour. One of the first things we did was to go check out the Mercado Modelo, which is known for its Shaman stalls. Which we found among all the other labrynthine multidude of vegetables, clothing, pets, meat....ect. The shaman section was definitely the most interesting part though. They had love potions and herbal remedies the same as you can find here if you go to a new age naturopath or china town. But also they had dried lizards and birds...including a condor...snakes and indigenous plants. One shaman was really eager to try out San Pedro (mescaline) right there in his stall....I can only imagine what kind of a trip that would be. Or he could sell you ayahuasca as well...not very spiritual I dare say. He seemed more like a drug pusher. We declined needless to say. The following day was spent on our tour of the Royal Tombs of Sipan. As I said earlier, the museum was the best part. It had the remains of a Royal person from 1200-1500 years ago. Everything they found in his tomb was on display. Incredible works of art from the gold earrings to the shell chest pieces and beautiful ceramics. They had his actual skeleton laid out in there as well as a reconstruction of exactly how the tomb was arranged upon discovery. They had a life sized, mecanized diarama of the Lord of Sipan´s funeral. It was very well done. The atmosphere they created was phenomenal. Apparently they found some living Moche descendents and took casts of their bodies to make the manikins. Anyways after that going to see the actual tomb site was a little bit boring by comparison....but they did have a new museum displaying the tomb of a high priest they had found later on. It was similar to the other one only smaller. We spent one more day to take the opportunity to go see a community wildlife preserve. A section of Peru´s dry forest being saved for posterity. The people of the community take care of it and benefit from 50% of the money made, the other 50% was divided up into various categories. It proved to be interesting. We got to see some of Peru´s endangered animals such as the spectacled bear and the white winged turkey. Along with some foxes and some some other types of birds. They had a display of snakes, lizards and amphibians as well. We listened to explantions of how the preservation of the forest had to be balanced with the development of the community. The forest is essential for the collection of water in the area.....it is very dry around there.But the highlight was feeding a spectacled bear an orange. They had a couple of bears they had rescued from a circus. They couldn´t be released back to the wild because their fangs had been pulled out. So now they serve as heralds to the education of tourists and Peruvians alike. |
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