Northern Peru

Today we arrived...about 2:30am..in the port of Salaverry on the Northern coast of Peru...a tired dusty working class port that serves at the gateway to Trujillo, the country’s 3rd largest city and home of the pre-Incan civilization...the ancient Chimu empire. Today we toured Huaca Dragon (Dragon Temple) a pyramid of adobe baking in the Peruvian sun for centuries, that was the former home to 50-60,000 people. Then we toured Chan Chan, a UNESCO World Heritage site that covered 8 square miles and is over 1000 years old. It shows the sophistication of the native South Americans before Incans and Spanish arrived. We also toured Huanchaco beach, the tired “tourist” area for wealthier Peruvians and saw the frishermen in action on their small reed boats navigating the surf line. These use the same reeds that Thor Heyerdahl used when he built Kon Tiki many years ago and sailed it to the South Pacific to test his theory that these people traveled great distances in these reed boats. All day, our ship was next to a Chinese ship that was unloading tons of corn...from Argentina...to feed the many Peruvian chicken producers in this area. It was fascinating to watch the unloading processs...labor intensive and dusty and probably expensive. I guess it averages out over a huge load but how do you ship corn from Argentina to Peru to raise chickens and have it all pencil out? This area of Peru, new to us, was poor and filled with trash. The people were modern looking with clean clothes but they looked out of place against this third world backdrop. Most lived in  squatters Camps with partially built homes made of scrap. They complained that Venezulian refugees were taking the jobs. They were great tour guides and very friendly but living in a very dry tough part of the world.