Not quite a scorpion

TV zombie

For our first stop in Peru we chose colonial Trujillo, a coastal town surrounded by ruins. We found a small apartment available for rent for a week, located close to a Walmart-esque mega grocery store, and settled in for some home-cooked meals by yours truly. (Menu mainly consisted of sandwiches, but after so much eating out, even simple stuff was a welcome change). We also had a luxury that we'd been missing for over a month...TV!

Trujillo was pleasant and colorful, with lots of colonial architecture and very agreeable weather. Located in the desert, we were told that the city experiences a single rainy season every 12 years, and that in ancient times, the period between rain was more like 20 years! Apparently, there's a river nearby that supplies the area with snow melt from the Andes.

The ruins in the area included Huaca del Luna/Huaca del Sol (Temple of the Moon/Temple of the Sun), built by the Mochi civilization during the 1st Millenium, AD. For me, the coolest aspect of these temples was their form of construction - 1 inverted pyramid level at a time internally, which created a regular, flat-topped pyramid from the outside. Also, it is still possible to see some of the original decoration, which helps the imagination along in trying to picture these now-crumbling structures in their former glory.

This area is where they made human sacrifices. 

Grrr. I think they're just hungry.

Looking at the levels of inverted pyramid.

    

A look at the Sun Temple, as seen from the Moon Temple

Next we saw the largest known adobe city and ruin in the world, Chan Chan, built by the Chimu civilization about 1300 years ago (for the Marathi speakers, Chan Chan was very chaan :-)). El Nino winds are eroding the site terribly, and much effort is being put into restoration.

    

Field Trip!

The next set of pictures are of a single King's palace, built during his lifetime, and for use after his death. Literally, his dead body was the only resident of the entire compound, and common folk were allowed into a single plaza for various festivals to pay their respects to his corpse. 

Plaza where King's body was displayed.

Pretty pool in the middle of the complex, taken over by nature.

And, ladies and gentlemen, the King!! (Body was long gone and replaced by a ridiculous dummy for the benefit of tourists.)

At each site we visited, we also caught glimpses of the famous Peruvian hairless dog - biringos - which were draped over various parts of the body in ancient times to provide heat - being that they lack hair, their natural body temperature is very high. Personally, I thought they looked super creepy and not the most snuggle-able.

And my final 2 thoughts on Trujillo:
1) A picture of the scorpion-like creature that Andrew found in the shower after I had just gotten out. Apparently he shared my bathwater. How kind.

According to our landlord (who we asked to remove the visitor), this is not quite a scorpion...it's much too small. However, the venom of its sting causes far more pain than that of a scorpion. I think my preference is to bathe with neither.

2) A picture of my brave man trying a Peruvian delicacy called cuy. Guess what it is...here's a hint: I'm pretty sure it's in the rodent family. No guesses? Ok, I'll tell you: Guinea Pig! And he liked it!

(The following are additional pictures from Trujillo but I don't feel like saying anything in particular about them so you'll just have to use your imagination.)