Cusco - Machu Picchu Peru

I did go from Huanchaco to Lima before heading to Cusco however I am being lazy, I am returning to Lima before I head home so I am going to combine the 2 visits into 1 blog post.

Currency Soles $1 US = $2.83 Soles
Taxi: Central Lima to Bus Depot (Cruz Del Sur) - $10 Soles
Bus Lima to Cusco: $140 Soles - 22 hours
Taxi Cusco Bus Depot to Hostel in San Blas $6 Soles
Hostel Cusco: $30 Soles
4 day Jungle Trek To Machu Picchu: $538 Soles included: meals, accommodations, park entrance & transportation (van/train)

I decided to splurge on the bus to Cusco, I figured a 22 hour bus ride was not the time to go cheap and it was a good decision. Comfy seats, blankets, pillow, 3 meals and good movies. I got a seat on the 2nd floor right at the very front which is great for viewing the sights. The scenery once we hit the mountains was spectacular but it is a little freaky from that seat. cliff, cliff, cliff, rock wall, rock wall, no road quite the rush in some places. The ride took 24 hours, we hit some contruction along the way so we got delayed a bit. I ended up getting sick all night on the bus, pretty sure it was bad street meat that I had on the way to the bus depot. Good thing I spent the big bucks on the delux bus 2 bathrooms to choose from.

We got into Cusco around noon and I grabbed a cab to the hostel I had found on hosteltrail.com called Casa Del Gringo II, it is located in the San Blas area which is just up the hill from the main square. I got a private room with a bathroom for $30 Soles which included breakfast. I really liked this hostel, the staff were great the breakfast was a real breakfast and they have some very nice common areas. I met some really great people staying here.

Cusco is at 3395m above sea level and altitude sickness is pretty common, I seemed to luck out and I was fine but if you go give yourself a few days in Cusco before you head out on a trek just in case. I did meet a lot of people who did get sick their 1st few days in town.  Cusco was the capital of the Inca emprire and then taken over by the Spanish so it has some great architecture and most of the streets in the central area are narrow cobblestoned twisty things. The town has tons of shops, tour operators, restaurants, museums, bars and hostels/hotels, everything a tourist would ever need. As Cusco is the place to gather before heading to Machu Picchu there is an eclectic mix of folks everything from backpackers to elderly Japanese tourists. It is a very hilly city, where I was staying was up a pretty steep hill, doing that every day 5 times a day for 3 days was pretty good training for the trek to Machu Picchu.

In January there was a flood/mudslide and Machu Picchu was shut down for a few month, it re-opened about a month before I got there in May. Due to this there was no way to get a permit to do the Inca Trail, they had a backlog of people to get through. At this time there are no permits available until October at a cost of $465.00 US, they recommend booking at least 3 months in advance. I ran into a woman in Colombia who had done 3 different treks up including the original Inca trail and she told me that she liked the jungle trek the best. I visited a few different tour operators in town and got itineraries and pricing and decided to do the 4 day jungle trek: biking, rafting & hiking. These tours leave every day so you can book it and go within 2 days so no need to pre-book online before you go. I booked my trip for 2 days later at a cost of $190.00 US. Since this leg of the trip I have run into people who have done the Salkantay hike which is 5 days and they all loved it. It is a more challenging hike and at higher altitudes so it is colder which means more gear to carry, it is camping not hostels and it costs a couple of hundred dollars more than the jungle trek.

Day 1
Put big pack in storage at hostel - pack day pack
7am - Mini Van pick up

There were 12 of us on the tour, 7 of us Canadians, 3 Americans and 2 Isralies, a few people knew each other and 5 of us were solo travelers. After the van picked me up we did a couple of more stops to pick up more people and then stopped to pick up the bicycles and put them on the roof. We then had an 1 1/2 drive to the top of a mountain where we unloaded the bikes and got a safety talk before they pointed us downhill and let us go. The ride is 50km and takes about 3 hours, the road is paved and twisty for about 2 hours of it and then it is dirt and twisty, some awesome views. The van follows along behind and a guide came with us on a bike, it is a fun ride you just have to remember to never never never use the front brakes. We did have one of our group take a tumble, hit a rut the wrong way. She gouged her knee up a bit but was fine, she is a trooper and got back on and finished after a little first aid. At the end of the ride the van picked us up and took us to the town of Santa Maria, we checked into the hostel and then went rafting for a few hours. The rafting was fun the river is a class 3 so not very challenging but again nice scenery and there were 3 other rafts going out the same time we went so a little rivalry going on. I would suggest lots of bug spray before you go, it was getting close to sunset towards the end and we all got some pretty good bites. Back to the hostel for diner which was great and a few beers and bonding. The group was great, no personality conflicts and everyone had been to different places so much sharing of travel knowledge. 4 of us were from Vancouver, 1 worked in Vancouver now and then and 1 of the Americans had been up with the US paralympics team so many discussions about the Olympics.

Day 2
7am Breakfast

This is a 9 hour hike day, we start our walk out of town at 8am. The 1st 30 minutes of the hike is on the road, we went through a section of town that is no longer used. The river in the area tends to overflow a lot so the low section of town that used to be populated got flooded out, kind of eerie some of the buildings are still there including the bank but they are definitely the worse for wear. We cut off from the road and headed into the jungle and uphill for a couple of hours. Along the trail every now and then we ran into local women selling drinks, strange going around a corner in the middle of nowhere and finding a lady sitting on a rock with a bucket of beverages. They are some tough people, 1 woman was walking up the trail with a kid strapped to her and carring 2 buckets full of drinks. I have no idea how she did it, there were parts along the trail when I was praying for death.

Thank god for Coca leaves, I brought a big bag of them with me to munch on and I am pretty sure they are the only thing that kept me going at some points. Coca leaves are legal in Peru and Bolivia, hostels with kitchens supply them for tea (mate de coca) and they are used for altitude sickness and to give a little extra stamina on hikes, you don't get as tired or hungry. But a word of warning, you will test positive for drugs for up to 28 hours after you ingest them so you may want to lay off them a few days before you head home especially if your work has drug testing.

After a few hours of uphill we got to a place called the monkey house, named after their pet monkey Marco one of those cute white faced/black ones. They also had a huge rodent looking thing, I can't remember what it was now but it was mean, they warned us not to touch it. The monkey house is along the path in the jungle, they sell drinks, snacks and they grow, roast and sell coffee. Best of all they had hammocks and an outhouse, we got to spend a leisurely 1/2 hour before heading out.

Just my luck more uphill, I really hate uphill, way too much like work. An hour of that and then downhill yippeeee.. But my happiness was short lived, it was downhill but on a very narrow path and some really small uneven stairs carved into the side of the mountain with a shear cliff drop off to the valley below. I have an issue with heights, they freak me out and in this case because the wall of the mountain was uneven there really wasn't any way to plaster myself to the wall. One of the guys had a worse problem than me, he ended up going down a lot of the stairs on his butt. If you have an issue with heights this may not be the tour for you. I made it and on my feet but I was pretty terrified for a good part of it. Makes it worse when your legs won't stop shaking. Once down the killer stairs we got a 15 minute rest and then off again, more uphill for an hour and then a stop for lunch at a restaurant in the middle of nowhere, more comfy hammocks. Another couple of hours in the jungle and then we were on a dirt road. After a few hours of eating dust everytime a car went by which happened every 5 minutes our guide gave us the option of taking a van the rest of the way. We took it. Checked into the hostel in Santa Theresa, long shower and off for diner.

At diner there was a little debate going on. When I booked my trip I was told the 3rd day was a 6 hour fairly easy hike. Some people were told they could choose between the 6 hour hike and a 9 hour hike that was 3 hours up a mountain. Our guide was under the impression it was a 6 hour hike and had a bit of a hissy fit, in the end he called his company and they told him to let us vote on it. The 9 hour hike won by 1 vote.

Day 3
5:30 am breakfast

One of our trekkers got sick the previous day and had skipped diner to try to sleep it off. She wasn't sure what was wrong with her, she isn't the kind of person that would say anything unless she was really ill. A total hiking health girl who has had dengue fever and malaria and lived to tell about it. She was feeling even worse in the morning and let the guide know that there was no way she could do the hike.

I wasn't into doing the 9 hour hike and neither were 2 others so we volunteered to go with her and just get a bus to Agua Caliente. Our guide told us there is no road, a casualty of the flood that had not been repaired yet, the only way out was to hike. Another group with the same tour company was doing the 6 hour hike so he told us to go with them. There was no way sick girl was going to be able to do the 6 hours, our guide seemed to have a problem grasping this. Finally he arranged for the van to take us up the river to where the road ended which took an hour off the walk. We would have to hike a couple of hour from there to the train station then we could put sick girl on a train and the 2 of us could join the short hike group and do the rest of the hike to Agua Caliente. Our original guide and the rest of our group headed out for the 9 hour hike.

The route we had to hike to get out was in the same area as the folks in the other group doing the 6 hour hike so we arranged to meet them at the end of the road where there was a "tram" over the river. I use the term  loosely, a piece of plywood suspended on a rope with a guy on each end to pull it back and forth. 2 of us went with sick girl in the van, me and the girl who gouged her knee on the bike ride and 1 went with the short hike folks. The 1st part of the short hike was up the road the van took so we didn't miss anything by taking the van. We met the short hike folks at the tram. It was an awesome ride across the river, the tram holds 3 people, it takes about 5 minutes to get pulled across, a pretty good rush. A tip for the guys pulling it across the ravine is expected once you reach the other side alive.

At this point the 3 of us parted company from the short hike folks, the guide gave us directions on how to get to the Machu Picchu park gate and told us to meet them there. We were on our own without a guide for the next couple of hours. Sick girl was a total trooper we didn't go very fast but she kept plugging along, said she was afraid if she stopped she wouldn't be able to get moving again. We did run into people going the other way every now and then so we could confirm we were going the right way, bit of a relief. We made it to the park gate, there was a bench so she got to lay down for a bit until the short hike folks arrived about 30 minutes later. Another 10 minute walk and we got to the train station and the restaurant that we were going to have lunch at. The train was not going to come for another 4 hours, there was a hostel there so the guide for the short hike group arranged to get sick girl a room so she could get some rest. The plan was to leave her there, our original group doing the 9 hour hike would be coming through in 3 hours, they could pick her up and someone could ride the train with her to Agua Caliente. We felt a little weird just leaving  her there but everyone that worked at the restaurant, hostel and store agreed to let our group know she was there when they came by so we were pretty sure they wouldn't miss picking her up.

After lunch we were off, the rest of the hike was on a trail by the railway tracks, an easy and beautiful walk. Some tricky "bridges" and by that I mean just the tracks with no side rails over the river so we had to walk on the spaced out ties, don't look down, don't look down. At one point there is a spot where we could look up and see Machu Picchu way up hanging off the side of the mountain, a magical sight. The hike took about 2 hours.

Agua Caliente is named after the thermal baths in town. The towns sole purpose is to cater to the tourist heading up to Machu Picchu. It is a cute town with restaurants and accommodations to suit ever budget, lots of uphill and since the only way in or out of town is via train or hiking there is no traffic other than the buses that run up to Machu Picchu. I was very much looking forward to the thermal baths so we checked into the hostel, suited up and headed out to the thermals. It was pretty crowded but the water was warm and a cabana boy brought beers around so we didn't have to get out of the pool. Paradise. I met some really great people in the pee pool, a wonderful way to spend a couple of hours.

When we got back to the hostel the rest of our original group was arriving and they had picked up sick girl from the hostel, the family was together again. Sick girl went to bed, the rest of us went out for diner to compare notes on our days adventures. They said their hike was good, the reason they wanted to do the extra 3 hours was because once you are up the mountain you can look across and see Machu Picchu. I am a very lazy person so I don't see why anyone would want to drag their ass up a mountain for that when they would be going there the next day but to each their own. In my world dragging my ass up a mountain or sitting in a thermal bath is a total no brainer choice.

Day 4
3:30am Up and hunting for coffee

The gate at the bottom of the trail up to Machu Picchu (Old Mountain) opens at 4:30am and the running of the backpackers begins. Why the race? There is a mountain in the citidel called Huayna Picchu (Young Mountain), only 400 people a day are allowed to climb it so the 1st 400 to make it to the gate at the top get the passes. They allow 200 up at 7am and 200 up at 10am, you let them know which one you want when the guy comes down the line to hand out the passes. The folks on the 1st bus at 5:30am are usually shit out of luck  A totally hilarious game, it is pitch black on the trail so a flashlight is required although there was 1 person using their cell phone to light the way which was darn funny to see. Okay the whole thing was funny, just a bunch of bobbing lights in the jungle and people scrambling around, a lovely bonding experience. The trail is really steep, it is made up of a ton of stairs, every now and then you come out of the bush and find yourself on the road, cross it then back into the bush and up more stairs.The average time to get to the top 1 1/2 hours, I was #249. Here is a link to a picture of the climb, the road zig zags, the trail goes straight up the middle, you come out at the top to the left of the building beside the ruins. And good news, sick girl although still not feeling very good did the hike up too.

Machu Picchu  is 2430 m above see level, it is a pre-Colombian ruins that was discovered by the outside world in 1911. No one is really sure why it was built but the leading theory seems to be that it was built as an estate for an Inca Emperor and as an astronomical observatory. Most people think the inhabitants were wiped out by small pox before the Spanish came to the area. Machu Picchu was never looted and destroyed by the Spanish so all of the artifacts and bones remained intact making it an important cultural site. It is a magical place, totally awe inspiring especially early in the morning before the crowds arrive. On that note, Machu Picchu is in danger, tourism and developement in the area is taking it's toll on the site and the surrounding areas, it is on the watch list of the worlds most endanged historical sites. In 1992 there were 9000 visitors for the year, in 2007 it was close to 5000 visitors a day. I couldn't find any info on it but I would bet the increase coincides with the building of the road and the bus service. Sometimes it is a very bad thing indeed to give in to tourist demands and the lure of $'s. I hope the Peruvian Government puts the brakes on new developement and starts limiting the number of tourists they let in each day. It would be a shame to loose this treasure because of our own stupidity.

Our guide was pretty annoying, I did the hike so I could peacefully watch the sunrise, same with most of the folks in our group. Our guide wanted to give us his spiel on the ruins complete with a picture book, a few of them escaped but he caught the rest of us trying to sneak off. It's a good thing I am very good at tuning people out, not as peaceful as I would have liked but a beautiful sight to behold.After a couple of hours he left us alone and we were free to run amok on our own.

I had decided not to do Huayna Picchu, it is a 45 minute trek straight up and I had heard there was a killer set of stairs on the way down, just couldn't face another scary ass stair heights thing. A tip; folks that do the Inca trail get in too late to get climbing passes for Huayna, there are lots of people like me that decide not to do the climb so... At 10am go and hang out at the entrance of Huayna, at 10:30am if they have not reached the 200 people they start letting in people on a 1st come 1st served basis.

I did hike over to the Inca bridge which was pretty cool, those Inca's were engineering geniouses. They managed to carve out a trail, be it a very narrow one along the side of the mountains. I also did a hike up to the Sun Gate which is where the origional Inca Trail comes into the site. By noon Machu Picchu is packed with people, it is really hard to go down the paths and through the ruins in the main part. The buses run up from Agua Caliente every 20 minutes and they are full. After about 7 hours of exploring I decided to head back to town. The bus down is $7.00US but I decided to walk down the trail, I wanted to see it in the daylight. It was much easier going down than it was coming up, it was a beautiful walk and I made many stops on the way down just to soak up the ambiance. Not many people on the trail which was very nice.

My train ticket back to Cusco was included with the tour, our guide (who had already gone back to Cusco) was suppose to leave them for us at the hostel reception. A few of the others from the group were there when I got back. Our guide had not purchased tickets for 2 people and we had a ticket for someone who did not exist. Luckily the same guide that helped us out with sick girl fixed it and got tickets for them, not sure how it happend but they got the 6:30pm train, the rest of us got the 9:45pm one. If you take the tour insist that you get a ticket out by 7pm, we didn't get back to Cusco until 2:30am, it made for a very long day.

Peru Rail is the only game in town, we were booked on the backpacker train, I was expecting a chicken bus on rails but was pleasently surprised. Comfy seats grouped in 4's around tables, free snacks and drinks, a very nice ride. I was sitting with a Peruvian family, Mom, Dad and Daughter who was about 10. Cute bossy kid, she is learning English so everytime I tried to speak in Spanish she would give me shit and tell me to use English, she wanted to translate for her parents. They travel a lot and have been everywhere in Peru, more good travel tips and their family owns Inca Cola a very popular soda pop in Latin America. I love talking to locals that is what travel is all about. The train does not go all the way to Cusco, they are still repairing a lot of the track that got damaged from the mudslide/flood so part of the way is by train then it is a mini van ride and then a bus. I ran into a guy from our group who was on the 6:30pm train a few weeks later in La Paz and he told me their mini van went off the road. They were very lucky there are some huge drop offs on that road, luckily no injuries.

The bus dropped me off at the main square in Cusco at around 2:30am. Cusco at night is very cool when there is no one around. Steep dark twisty cobblestone streets, old buildings, toss in a vampire and wolf and you have the makings of a great horror movie. I didn't run into anyone on my walk up the hill to the hostel it was very peaceful, I took the long way back. I did have to wake up the night person at the hostel, I felt kind of bad. To get in you have to hit a buzzer so I am pretty sure I woke up everyone in the place cause I spent 1/2 an hour hitting it before the person that worked there woke up and answered. Not bad enough that I was willing to sleep in the doorway however.

The next day I was heading out to Bolivia, I had purchased my bus ticket before I left on the trek. My bus didn't leave until 8pm so I slept in, stored my packs at the hostel and spent my last day wandering around town.

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Trujillo Huanchaco

Currency Soles $1 US = $2.83 Soles
Bus Mancora to Trujillo $30 Soles (10 hours)
Hostel Trujillo $45 Soles
Bus Trujillo to Haunchaco $1.60 Soles (30 minutes)
Hostel Haunchaco $15 Soles
Entrance Fee Chan Chan (covers 3 sites) - $11 Soles
Entrance into Temple of the Moon Site - $11 Soles

As mentioned in my last post I got screwed on my bus trip out of Mancora. On the upside I can cross off my bucket list; peeing on the side of the Panamerican Highway in Peru with a bus load of people waiting, thank god I thought I would never get to do that one, I can die happy now. I got into Trujillo at about 10am.

Trujillo does not have a central bus depot, every company has their own stations which is a pain in the ass when shopping for tickets as they are spread out all over the city. Luckily my station was pretty close to the center of town which is where the hostel I booked was. According to my map the hostel was not far away so I decided to walk it, again luck was on my side. I did not know it at the time but Trujillo is the 3rd largest city in Peru. The center of town is an oval shape with a street that runs all the way around it so it makes navigation pretty easy. My walk took about 20 minutes, would have been shorter if I had not gone in the wrong direction to begin with, figured it out within a couple of blocks so I'm getting better. I do actually like getting lost and do it on purpose a lot, just not when I am lugging around my big pack.

I had found the hostel Residencial Munaywasi on hosteltrail.com and it sounded good, old colonial home, 2 blocks from 1 of the main squares, family owned and operated. I had emailed them requesting a dorm room, I had not heard back so I wasn't sure if I had a reservation or not. Turns out I did but they don't have a dorm just private rooms with a TV that are $45 Soles a night. As I was only staying the 1 night I splurged. I did enjoy watching the Prestige on TV, Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale great movie. The lady that runs the place is very nice, she made me a Pisco Sour; the national Peruvian drink, those things will knock you on your ass. I dropped my stuff and headed out to walk around for a while. That lasted all of 2 hours before I headed back and took a 4 hour siesta. Did I mention no sleep on the bus? Went out again when I woke up, nice place lots of squares, a big street market and tons of shops and restaurants.


The next day I was heading to Huanchaco which is a suburb of Trujillo, it is the beach end of town. My experience up to this point is that beach town never have super markets so while in Trujillo I hit the mega super market. The hostel I was heading to had a full kitchen and I was going to be there a few days so I wanted to have some supplies. The hostel I was at in Trujillo had a kitchen as well so I had a place to store them, worked out pretty well.

The big draw for the area is the pre-Inca ruins of Chan Chan, the largest pre-Colombian city in South America and the larges adobe city in the world (20 square miles), the pre-Inca ruins of the Muche people and the surf breaks off Haunchaco. They are suppose to be some of the best in the world, funny how every place says that, I guess it is a pretty vague statement.

Day 2 I caught the collectivo van out to Trujillo, the highway runs right through the middle of the Chan Chan ruins. A pretty impressive site even if they are very damaged, you can tell they were walls but the elements (rain, wind earthquakes) have taken their toll on them.

I had chosen the Nay Lamp Hostel as my new home. The reviews online were good, it had a kitchen and was across the street from the beach. A bed in a 6 bed dorm was $15 Soles a night. It is a really nice place, there are 2 sections the back has the kitchen, camping area with fire pit and some rooms. The front has rooms, restaurant and reception area. They also have a couple of large turtle mascots who will wander into your room if you leave the door open, they also seem to like the main bathroom of the restaurant. It is a great place, some really nice people who work there and non champagne backpackers. Although I did meet up with a couple who were also at the Loki during my time there.

As I suspected no super market in town, however there is one on the road back to Trujillo about a 20 minute bus ride away. They do have a pretty good markado with fresh vegetables, meats and some groceries. It is a typical tourist beach town, lots of restaurants, surf shops, street vendors and artisan shops. But it has a much better vibe than Mancora, everyone is not out to scam you, more laid back. Like Mancora every restaurant serves Cebichi (seafood cooked in lime juice), all the backpackers eat the stuff by the truckload and they all say it is great. I however do not do adventures in food so I have no first hand opinion. I like my food dead, not looking the way it did when it was alive and well done not "cooked" in lime juice. As close as I get to living on the edge is empanadas which I do really like a lot and they are very cheap. The town also has several fine establishments that serve torte de chocolate (chocolate cake) and apple pie so I was pretty happy with the food selections available.

As well as being a surf town Huanchaco is a fishing town and has been since the days of the Inca. The local fisherman use nets and small reed boats that are too small for them to put their feet in so they dangle them over the sides. You can find the boats on the shore when not in use and the fishermen sitting around mending their nets, all very small village feeling which is very nice, you can tell they are not there for the tourists they are working folks.

Chan Chan is a must see while in this area, it is located between Trujillo & Haunchaco so either place is a good base. It is about a 1km walk to the main ruins, there are taxi's that you can take if you are feeling really lazy and a few people offering to sell maps etc. Don't pay for a guide, only official guides are allowed to take you through the site. The entry fee to get in is 11 Soles (covers entrance to 2 other sites and the museum) the price includes a guide (you can't go through without one), tipping the guide is not included. My guide had worked there since 1963, he worked with the archeologists in helping to uncover the site, then in restoration and now as a guide. He also spoke 3 languages, a pretty amazing guy. Chan Chan has been pretty hard hit by nature, it's amazing that it has lasted as long as it has, I am pretty sure adobe is not meant to last that long. The city covered 20km in it's prime, unfortunately now there is a lot of it that just looks like hills of sand, you can see some brick in it but most of it is lost now.

The city was built by the Chimu around 850AD, they were conquered by the Incas in 1470AD. The entire city had a 50-60 foot wall around it made of bricks with a layer of smooth finish over the top. In the section that tourists can visit the walls have carvings on them, animals, fish etc.. The site runs along the Pacific Ocean which had the tallest walls to protect the town from the winds. It is an incredible place, what they have managed to recover and restore is beautiful and they are still working on the site so there is stuff still to discover. They have found evidence of human sacrifices and the elite of the society were buried with their toys and in some cases their wives and servants. The site was looted by the colonials so may of the artifacts and traces of what the people may have been like, how they lived and how their society operated are lost. There is much speculation by the intellectual types and a variety of theories based on what has been found so far.

As mentioned the ticket for Chan Chan also covers the museum which I did go and see, it is a short 5 minute walk down the road. It was okay but nothing fantastic. One of the other ruins is in a suburb, kind of weird, right behind a park, also okay but very small. I have been running into these Inca dogs while I have been here, no fur and kind of ugly, they come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, some of them have a little tuft of hair on the top of their heads. The guy that ran this place had 4 adult ones and 4 puppies. The puppies are not as ugly as the grownups but still only a face a mother could love. You do have to be very careful about comments, the folks that own them think they are beautiful and they get offended if they hear you call them ugly.. Guilty, had to do some fast back-peddling in bad Spanish. I did not make it to the other site included in the ticket, it is way off the beaten path. I was just being lazy so I have no information to share on that one and none of the other travelers had gone either so might be worth the trip.

I did go to another site, temple of the sun and temple of the moon (Huaca del Sol & Huaca del Luna), these are dated at 100BC - 650AD they preceded the folks that made Chan Chan, these were the Muche. The Huaca del Sol has not been excavated and you cannot go into it, seems there is not enough funding and it was mostly destroyed, the Spanish diverted a river to wash it away to try to get the gold out. At 135 feet above the plain it is the tallest adobe structure in the Americas. The Huaca del Luna has been partially excavated but they don't have plans to do much more, they are afraid that they may weaken the supports and damage the ruins. Both temples were looted long ago, the Spanish got there first and then modern day robbers have taken over.

I took the bus here with a Swiss hostel mate, a longer journey than I had thought it would be. Despite reminding our bus wrangler (the guy that yells at you to get on and off the bus and takes your money) he forgot to let us know when our stop for the connecting bus was so we went by it and had to backtrack. On the upside he felt really bad and gave us our money back. So back we went and then had to wait for a collectivo up to the site. Funny how you can ask 4 different people what van to catch and you get 4 different answers. Sucks because they don't really stop the wrangler just yells their destination as it is going by so you have to be quick and understand really garbled Spanish. Finally got it, $1.90 Soles and a 1/2 hour ride and we are there.

The entrance fee is $11 Soles and once again the guide is included, you can't go without one. You get to watch a 20 minute DVD on the excavation of the site, it is done by a company called Backus they also own the beer company and a bottled water company, kind of like a town in a Dean Koontz novel, makes you wonder what else they own.

This is a much smaller site than Chan Chan but I liked it better. The Muche liked color, most of their paintings are in color and it has held up over the years. The Luna Temple was the religious and sacrificial temple. Seems the Moche would organize fights between men and the loser got sacrificed by being strangled. There's a match you hope you win. The valley between the temples is were the folks lived and worked, some of it is still visible but not much. None of the artwork that has been uncovered in Luna has been restored, what you see is how they found it and it is amazing, definitely go and see this if you are in the area it is well worth the trip and like Chan Chan a portion of your entrance fee goes towards funding the excavation and preservation.

Back to the hostel for my last night, fire in the pit, some beers and some really cool people. Brit girl and Swiss guy who I did some of the tours with. NY rasta surfer dude, Bellingham surfer dude, Brando from Boston and the 5 traveling girls, Brit guys and Danish couple and Ecuador climbing guy. Was a pleasure sharing time with you. Happy travels.

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