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After leaving the Galápagos Islands, we had five days to work our way back to Lima for our November 9th flight to the States. Our first night in mainland Ecuador, we spent in Guayaquil. Early the next morning, we traveled by bus to the border, crossing into Tumbes, Peru. Having already spent a night in Tumbes on our way to the Galápagos, we decided to take a night bus to Chiclayo, Peru. While in Chiclayo, we visited Sipan, one of the most significant archeological finds in the Americas, and often compared to King Tut's tomb. The next day we traveled further south to the fishing village of Huanchaco. After a day and a night there, during which we also visited nearby Trujillo, we took a night bus to Lima. In Lima we had one full day of sightseeing before we returned to the States for the wedding of our good friends, Damion and Lissa.
This is the tomb of El Señor de Sipan together with replica artifacts. This is the first of what are now twelve tombs that have been discovered at this site. When this tomb was discovered in the 1980s, it was so significant that it merited the cover of National Geographic. El Señor de Sipan was buried along with enormous quantities of gold jewelry and other gold objects, together with two llamas, a dog, two women who were presumably sacrificed, along with a priest and a soldier with his feet amputated (symbolic of the soldier never leaving the side of El Señor).
Here is the actual tomb and bones of a tomb whose excavation is not yet complete. We were fortunate to see this tomb, as it was not open to the public. We made friends with an archeologist whose name happened to be Indiana Jones.
Kelly and Rich take turns making extremely significant archeological discoveries at Sipan. In the background, you may notice the pyramids. While they look like mountains of earth, they were at one time magnificent pyramids constructed of adobe bricks. Unfortunately, a thousand years of erosion have taken their toll on these mud bricks, leaving what we see today. Any dumby knows knot to build a pyramid with mud bricks. Incas they aint!
The day we traveled to Huanchaco, we arrived in time to see a beautiful sunset over the Pacific Ocean. A quaint fishing village, here are silhouettes of the traditional fishing boats that line the beaches as they dry in the sun. Known as caballitos, or little horses, they are a symbol of Huanchaco.
The next day we explored more of Huanchaco before traveling to Trujillo.
In Northern Peru two of the principal crops are sugar cane and bananas. Sliced sugar cane is sold cheaply on the streets of Trujillo. It is enjoyed by chewing on the fibery stalk, extracting the sugary juice (it tastes like sugar water) and spitting out the stalk once all of the sweet juice has been extracted. To be honest, we did not really like it, but at least we tried it.
School girls at Trujillo's Plaza de Armas. Trujillo is the largest city in Northern Peru.
Our last day of sight seeing was spent in Lima, with this photo being taken of the Plaza de Armas. We found Lima, a city of 8 million inhabitants, to be a very pleasant and interesting, as well as modern, city. We look forward to spending more time here some day.
In Lima, we toured the Church and Convent of San Francisco. In the
bowels of the structure were catacombs, where at one time the bones of Lima's
citizens were disposed. Today, bones can still be found in the catacombs,
as we see here.
One of Lima's many parks. This one sits high above the Pacific Ocean in the wealthy and fashionable district of Miraflores in Western Lima.
The Pacific Ocean meets Lima's shores. The next day we would be flying over this very ocean and this coast line as we headed back the the United States.
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