August 16, 2012
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Tours in English
As recommended in the best Guidebooks, our most popular programme includes the following sites, costs, & times.
Day 1. Archaeological Tour
Huacas de Moche: Moche Pyramids of the Sun & the Moon, and Campiña de Moche (countryside).
Huacas del Sol y la Luna, y Campiña de Moche.
www.huacadelaluna.org.pe
Museo de Sitio de Chan Chan Site Museum (Details beloow) www.unitru.edu.pe/cultural/arq/Lunch break
Huaca del Dragón o Arco Iris. Rainbow or Dragon Temple.
Nik-An (Ex-Tschudi) Palace, Chan Chan. Visitors centre outside palace.
Huanchaco Beach and reed boats. It takes 3 hours to visit the Huacas del Sol y de la Luna (Pyramids of the Sun & the Moon) &
Campiña de Moche, & 3.5 hours for 3 parts of Chan Chan, and the sites open around 9am.The Moche countryside gives the opportunity to explain the geology, climate, water flow, irrigation,
flora, fauna & economic activities throughout time and the sequence of cultures.In the Pyramids extensive polychrome mural relief paintings can be seen, as well as excavations in progress.
The University Museum explains the geography, chronology, principal ages and cultures of North Peru, with exhibits from the principal cultures, including objects found recently in the Pyramids.
We expand on the brief explanations, written only in Spanish.The Pyramid of the Sun was the largest pre-Columbian mudbrick pyramid in the Americas,
and Chan Chan was the largest city in the Americas when the Incas arrived.Day 2.City Tour
We visit the 2 principal squares and monuments, the best of the colonial houses and/or churches,
or modern suburbs, in accordance with your preferences. 2 or 3 hours.
Weekday (9am-1pm) & Saturday (9am-noon) mornings or weekday afternoons (4.30-6.15pm) are best.Cassinelli Museum
Contrast a private collection of excellent ceramics with no written explanation, in a curious location,
with those scientifically excavated in the University museum.
1 hourDay 3. Temple of Doom El Brujo Archaeological Complex 4 hours
A trip 40 kilometres north up the Pan-American Highway and then 20 kilometres west
through the sugar cane fields leads us to Huaca Prieta, a coastal temple 4,500 years old
from preceramic times, a site later extended by the Cupisnique, from Chavin times,
with Salinar & Virú/Gallinazo cultural remains, 2 Moche Pyramids, El Brujo,
where shamans still perform, & Cao Viejo with profuse polychrome relieves,
Lambayeque & Chimú cemeteries, and a ruined colonial Dominican church.Optional: We can pass through the site of 2 priestesses, La Sacerdotisa de San José de Moro,
its museum & continue on to pass the night in Chiclayo.
2 hours.Day 4. Visit Sipán, Museo Brüning, & Túcume. 7 hours.
Sipán has yielded 13 tombs so far, including 2 of the richest excavated in the western world
this century, and their contents & more are displayed in the Brüning Museum.
Túcume comprises 28 great pyramids, including the largest mudbrick construction in the Americas, if not the world.Alternatively, Túcume & the 2 new museums can be visited in a full day from Trujillo.
The new Museo Nacional Sicán in Ferreñafe, inaugurated the first week in May 2001, opened on 3rd November 2001.The new National Museum for Gold treasures from ancient Peru
The Royal Tombs of Sipán in Lambayeque, opened in November 2002.
Sipan1.
1. Huaca del Sol (Pyramid of the Sun)
3 km south east of Trujillo, this pyramid is 43 metres tall. A legend says that it was constructed
in just 3 days, by 200,000 men. It is estimated that up to 143 million adobe mudbricks form it.
100 years ago the German Max Uhle discovered 23 Moche culture burials in the first platform
with a Chimú cemetery near to its south face. Although climbing is prohibited, its size impresses
from below, or in the landscape from the Pyramid of the Moon.Huaca de La Luna (Pyramid of the Moon)
150 metres east of the Sun Pyramid, also on the left side of the Moche river.
Inside the adobe walls, 180 metres long north-south, 215 metres east-west, & 3 platforms, are
estimated to exist 8,000m2 of mural paintings & neatly defined polychrome relieves.
28 of an estimated 32 metre height remain, which provide extensive views over the excavations in
the Mochica urban area, the valley, the Andes, & the Pacific Ocean.
Discoveries include human sacrifices, tombs, ceramics & textiles decorated with metals from
the Moche culture, & wooden models inlaid with tropical sea shells from the Chimú,
representing funerals & ritual offerings in ceremonial squares in honor of their ancestors.Urban area
Excavations have revealed canals, avenues, side streets, adobe homes, patios, hearths, kitchens
for dwellings & groups of dwellings, ceramic workshops, & burials with dozens of ceramics.Ticket sales are 9am-4.00pm daily.
From 1 January 2002 the entrance ticket includes the northern facade, Garrido friezes & internal
patios in the 11.00 nuevo soles general price, S/6.00 student price & S/1 childrens' price.2. Chan Chan
It is said that Taykanamo, the legendary Founder of Chan Chan, came from the ocean,
learned the native language, constructed his temple & home, & was elected leader.
It was the most important nucleus of the Chimú culture (IX-XV century AD). It is considered the
world's largest pre-Colombian mudbrick city & was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1986.
Over an area of 14 km2 spread remains of palaces, popular suburbs, cultivated fields & cemeteries.
These evidence the level reached by this culture extended along half of the Peruvian coast.
The 9 palaces or citadels are comprised of squares & auditoriums, in the ceremonial religious,
civil & military sectors, wells for ceremonial & daily use, a mausoleum, all surrounded by stores,
with direct corridors & mazes inside the outer walls.They were connected with the irrigation canals, excellent roads and pyramid temples.
Their enormous walls have been profusely decorated with relieves of geometric figures,
zoomorphic style and mythological beings.
The workshops and popular dwellings are outside, in intermediate and popular architecture.
The Chimú people were great craftsmen in metals, ceramics, textiles, wood, sea shell & stone,
in greater quantity than the Moche.
An admirable vast system of subterranean aqueducts & canals constructed to bring water enormous
distances, giving rise to opinions of experts & that the importance of Chan Chan is comparable to
Teotihuacán, in Mexico, or the ancient cities of Egypt, Mesopotamia & China.3. Chan Chan Site Museum
5 kms from Trujillo, on the road to Huanchaco, it has models of monumental, popular & intermediate
architecture, chronological charts, maps & a sound & light show of the cultural development;
photos of the natural environment; remains of the Stone Age; ceramics from 5 cultures,
textiles & metals; life-size models of textile & metal workshops; replicas of mud friezes;
fishing & farming implements; in a wood with flora & fauna typical of the zone.
It has been the site of 2 Pan-American Conservation Courses in 1996 & 1999,
& the Second Meeting on the Moche Culture in 1999.Huaca del Dragón, o Arco Iris (Dragon or Rainbow Temple)
This temple, on the Pan-American Highway 4 km to the north of the city of Trujillo, is decorated
with anthropomorphic figures & stylised representations, & a rainbow similar to a centipede.
The reopening of its museum is awaited, with photographs of the restoration, idols carved in wood
incrusted with sea shells, ceramics from the Chimú, Cajamarca & Recuay cultures, all excavated
from the area.Esmeralda Temple
Situated 3 blocks behind San Salvador de Mansiche Church, 2.5 kms west of the centre of Trujillo,
this temple has ramps & platforms decorated with sea otters, fish & birds, & fishing net patterns.Visits
Tickets are sold at the Tschudi Palace, Dragon or Rainbow Temple (Arco Iris), & Site Museum.
They are valid for these 3 sites, & Esmeralda Temple.
The ticket office hours are 9am-4.30pm. They may close on December 25th & January 1st.
The general entrance costs PES/11.00, PES/1 for schoolchildren & PES/6.00 for ISIC students,
Peruvian pensioners, professors, terciary students, armed forces & police.
They are not on sale at Esmeralda.4. El Brujo
Situated in the district of Magdalena de Cao, it has exceptional geographic & historic attributes,
for its natural environment, cultural discoveries, traditional & actual economic activities.
It overlooks the the Ocean, countryside & remains a rich source of marine & agricultural products.
El Brujo helps to relate the cultural development with nature, archaeology & eco-tourism,
the most popular tourism categories in Peru.
These values are complimented by its visual aspects & the constant discoveries; They are
exceptionally eye-catching in the media, museums & expositions, both actual & virtual.
It has undoubted historic value for its use by a compendium of cultures from the first
horticulturalists, up to today; its cultural importance during 2,000 years;
the first use in Peru of carbon 14 for dating organic materials; a tradition of conservation from
the fire engraved gourds from 1946 up to the actual Programme; monumental architecture with
marked bricks; mural paintings & the first polychrome relieves with the predilect themes of Moche
iconography; the fastuosity of the Moche ceramics; the Moche metalwork; the chamber tombs
with wall paintings, a reburial, a priestess’s tomb, the only tomb in a spiral well, an imposing
idol & spearthrowers carved in wood, all from the Moche; the quality & complexity of their art &
architecture & their state of conservation; fine textiles of hundreds of burials from the
Lambayeque culture, including a burial inside the architecture of the Huaca Cao Viejo; the
architecture & an extensive Chimú cemetery; a colonial church of the Dominican fathers; &
the evidence of natural phenomena throughout time.
The El Brujo Complex must have housed an important population centre in the lower part of the
valley, where the political & religious activities would have been centralised especially at
the end of the Moche period, as the religious capital of the valley.
Discoveries are from the Preceramic Period (Bird 1946); Cupisnique, Salinar, Gallinazo, Moche,
Lambayeque, & Chimú cultures; colonial & actual times.
While excavating the replica of the tomb in the Museum, colonial ceramics were found.
El Brujo has visual aspects, like the colour, contrasts & quality of its art, whose state of
conservation has been facilitated by the artists of the past & the techniques of today.
These visual cultural aspects, and the natural panorama from its lookouts over the ocean & the
countryside; are great attractions to visitors.
General entrance PES/11.00, students PES/6.00.Tour Circuits
City Tours, history, colonial houses, churches, monuments.
Pyramids of the Sun & the Moon (Sol y Luna),
Temples of the Dragon or Rainbow(Arco Iris) & Esmeralda,
Tschudi Palace of Chan Chan, Huanchaco.Trujillo- El Brujo- San José de Moro - Chiclayo.
Sipán & site museum, Royal Tombs Museum, Huaca Ventarrón, Collud-Zarpán, Huaca Quiñones,
Brúning Museum, Chotuna, Túcume, Sican (Lambayeque), Museums, Zaña,
Museo Nacional Sicán (Español) Sican Museum, Ferreñafe, Lambayeque.
Español - English - Deutsch - Français - Italiano
Michael White Temple
Clara Luz Bravo Díaz
Delicia del Carmen Andrés Bravo,
Cahuide 495, Urb. Santa María, Trujillo, Peru
Tel +51 44 243347/299997.
Cellular + 51 44 949662710.
Email: microbewhite@yahoo.com
Accommodation: www.xanga.com/TrujilloPeruTours (5 languages), transport, route, weather, holidays:
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