Chan Chan is huge – an adobe city over 20km^2, made up of ten “palace complexes”, of which only one is open to the public. The site is so big that the Pan-American highway cuts through the middle of it, and as we drove along I could see adobe walls on both sides of the […]
Clearly, I wasn’t going to be able to escape Christmas totally this year. Since Peru is a predominantly Catholic country, at least nominally, the Peruvians were enthusiastically celebrating. On just about every street corner in the cities there was a nativity scene, ranging in size from a foot or so cubed to fully life-sized figures. […]
After scattering the ashes, we drove south on the Pan-American highway for about three hours to a temple complex at El Brujo (The Witchdoctor) where some very interesting discoveries had been made in 2006 which the archaeologists are still getting to grips with. The first part of the visit was interesting enough. You can see […]
I’m trying to think what the opposite of “haute cuisine” would be. I need my friend F. to advise, but “bas cuisine” is close enough. It’s fair to say that the food was not one of the highlights of the holiday! But then, I went there for the five-star rubble rather than fine dining, so […]
I took some of Christopher’s ashes with me to Peru, with the aim of scattering them somewhere I thought he’d appreciate. He would have really enjoyed the holiday, and would have loved taking photos of all the ruins. Obviously, I didn’t know the area at all, so I asked my guide for some advice for […]
On the afternoon of Boxing Day, my guide and driver took me to Túcume, also known as the Valley of the Pyramids. In fact, they’re not really pyramids at all, but large mud-brick platforms, some used for ritual purposes (e.g. temples) and others apparently being administrative complexes. It’s mostly unexcavated as yet, but there have […]
Some of my friends seem to think I’m a pretty intrepid traveller, given the way I keep taking myself off to interesting places for holidays. In fact, it’s hard work travelling long-haul by myself, especially to somewhere where I don’t speak the language. There’s nobody to keep an eye on my bags while I nip […]
On Boxing Day I was again picked up from my hotel at 08:30, and driven out to Huaca Rajada, a mud-brick burial platform from the Moche culture, spanning the years approximately AD1-700. Archaeologists were first alerted to the site in 1987, when looters discovered a burial rich in gold. There was a major falling-out amongst […]
As I mentioned yesterday, I’d challenged Explore Tailormade to come up with a full programme of visits on Christmas Day, despite the fact that it was a public holiday in Peru and all the main site were closed. They rose to the challenge magnificently. I was picked up at 8:30 in the morning by my […]
I really dislike this time of year. It’s not Christmas in itself that’s the problem, but rather the fact that it was just before Christmas in 2009 that Chris was first diagnosed, out of the blue, with cancer. We spent the entire Christmas and New Year period going from one hospital appointment to the next, […]
