it's in the details

Just hours after arriving in Trujillo it was off to see some of the spectacular ruins built by the Moche people in northern Peru. It was off to the Chan Chan complex!

First, to the Museum because 1. it's on the way to the the site of Nik An Palace, 2. the museum provides the groundwork of who did what at the site when it was built, and 3. it's where you buy the tickets for the entire Chan Chan circuit. With an expired university ID card, tickets were just 5-6 soles, or about $2.50.

The museum showcased some of the intricate Moche pottery work scattered throughout the north coast...

iconic pottery of the Late Moche period... and Tiago!

And like the huge red museum for the Señor de Sipán outside of Chiclayo, this small exhibit featured lots of dioramas populated with what are probably physiologically-accurate mannequins... just check out the height difference between the slaves and I. By the way, they're standing on a platform.

High Moche culture

Another strikingly similarity between artifacts found at Nik An Palace and the Señor de Sipán was this funerary mask... Señor definitely had one just like this.

But whereas the Señor de Sipán is a lone tomb, Chan Chan is the remains of a former hub of trade and production. Moche people around Trujillo maintained a storied tradition of warriors... and slaves. They even made statues of slaves... kind of weird, but whatever floats your boat!

note how his hands are hidden behind his back,
as if he's bound

After browsing through the small museum, it was off on a dusty road lined by white rocks to see Nik An Palace:

Machu Picchu, Ollantaytambo, and the area surrounding Cuzco hog the tourist limelight in Peru. But it must be known that Peru is more than just an Incan legacy. The Mochica created fantastic structures out in the middle of a dry desert landscape, and their monuments precede those of the Incas by a few centuries.

What I loved about Chan Chan's Nik An Palace was the detail in the walls...

fascinating... what animal is this?

they look like turkeys... or vultures?

this fish motif is etched in the glass before security check
at Jorge Chavez International Airport in Callao!

I'm not sure what animal that is in the foreground but I LOVE that is appears pixelated.
I can see it chasing a pre-Columbian Super Mario through Trujillo!

Another lovely thing about getting out of the well-worn paths of Machu Picchu is that there are nearly no tourists in the rest of Peru. Most of the tourists I encounter in the North are Peruvians on a daytrip... the lack of extranjeros like me means that photos like this are possible...

After a few hours of trekking through sandy Nik An Palace with Pamela, her toddler boy Tiago, baby Caye, and nanny Naty, we decided to head somewhere more refreshing and took a first look at Huanchaco Beach. Got some fritters from the snack shack...

this is a restaurant-bar...

See the super professional two-burner stove?
That's what elevates a stand on the street to a bonafide café here.

Picarrones! These donuts are freshly fried.
They're served with what appears to be a fig and some syrup of "fig."

Just-fried donuts on the beach, good company, and memories of a palace decorated with carvings of strange animals... sometimes, all you need are the simple things. In Peru, you are almost always surrounded by the simple things.