Just 4 ½ kilometers outside of the city of Trujillo, the ruins of the ancient city of Chan Chan stretch for miles. If you’re riding a bus from Trujillo to the beach town of Huanchaco, you may not realize that you’re passing through this historic 8 square mile city, the capital of the Chimu Kingdom back in 1300 AD and a UNESCO Historical and Cultural Heritage Site today. In its hay day, Chan Chan had a population of 100,000. Today, from the road, it pretty much looks like more desert, with nothing to distinguish the brown adobe walls from the brown sand that is everywhere. Upon closer observation, it seems we might learn something from these people. Although only a small portion of the site has been excavated and restored, the grandness of the walls is obvious. The friezes that decorate the walls are shaped like waves, fish, seabirds and mammals, fish nets. Their patterns are clear today. I wonder what will be left of today’s architecture in another eight or nine hundred years. There was a vast underground system of underground aqueducts. There are no written records from the Chimu, and their origins are only conjecture. But what is known is that the beginning of the end of their culture occurred in the 1470’s, when Inca armies cut off the aqueducts supplying their water. As my friend Emma says, it’s always all about water. It’s a fascinating story and intriguing to see the progress of dozens (probably 100’s) of archeologists as they undertake the task of uncovering this massive complex . It takes only an hour to walk through the part that has already been somewhat restored. I’m sure that some people could spend days going through such a place. We were fascinated. But we had seen all we needed to see in an hour.
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