|
On the final day of our Peru vacation, we signed up for a guided tour of Caral with Haku Tours. Caral is one of the oldest civilizations, even older than the Egyptian civilization! Remarkably, it was only within the last 20 years or so that archaeologists even realized that Caral had existed - for decades the ruins had been ignored. The pyramids were covered with soil and sand and thought to be naturally occuring hills. It wasn't until archaeologists dug into one the hills and found a pyramid did interest pick up. When some organic material was discovered, which allowed accurate carbon dating, did anyone understand how astonishingly ancient the Caral civilization truly was. Caral is now recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and a team of archaeologists are exploring the many ruins. Caral is actually the central city in a valley populated with smaller satellite cities, all clustered around the Supe River. I didn't realize how far away Caral is from Lima. It was more than a 3 hour drive each way between Lima and Caral. All along the arid coast there is nothing but dry barren wasteland, and yet there are acres of shanty huts covering the miles of these empty lands. Our guide explained that Peru had a policy that if you lived on a piece of land for 15 years, then it became your own land. This has inspired the poor folks to build for miles and miles along the coast - you see endless tiny huts and shacks, it is hard to believe that anyone could inhabit such primitive structures, without water, power, shade or food - literally miles from any where. At Caral we stopped first at the displays of artifacts at the entrance - these looked like they were recently built, as if Peru is hoping that Caral becomes another tourist destination. It looked like shells were used as money in Caral. A guide walked as among the pyramids, explaining different details what was known. Unfortunately, like the Inca, the people of Caral had no system of writing, so our limited knowledge of the Caral civilization can only be gleaned from their ancient buildings and the few artifacts that were found. (There were some tombs discovered at Caral, but everything had been looted at some point in the distant past). There are numerous signs posted around the site, so I took photos of those signs because I knew I would not remember the information from our guide. It was early evening before we returned to Lima. Our flight back to the USA didn't depart until 2:00 AM, so we walked around Miraflores. We asked where the famous "cat park" was, and were directed to a nearby city park occupied by dozens of feral cats. We tried to find a store that sold cat treats, but unfortunately we couldn't find any for sale, so the cats ignored us while we were in the park. It was an uneventful return trip back to Seattle, and when we got home, our own cats greeted us enthusiastically. Peru had been a tremendous two week adventure. A very successful trip. Panorama Photos
MapsCaral is further from Lima than I expected. I knew we had signed up for an all day tour, I didn't realize it meant we would spend so long driving to and from the site.
I took this map from a photo on a sign at Caral. It shows the major structures of the city.
Another map of the Caral city taken from a sign.
VideosIf you do not see the videos, but instead see a message that says: "Error: Video playback aborted" it is possible that the content is being blocked by your web browser. You may see a message at the top or bottom of your page that says "restricted webpage from running scripts or ActiveX controls". If you see that message, click on the ALLOW BLOCKED CONTENT box and that should allow these videos to run.
To display the photo images on this webpage, I am using a freely distributed java script called Lightbox v2.7.1 written by Lokesh Dhakar. You can download this program by clicking on this link. All the text and photographs on this webpage are my own creation, but the textured background is taken from a site, EOS development, that offers non-profit users free use of their graphics. Click the icon below to visit their site.
|
Click on any thumbnail to begin the slide show at that photograph Day 15 Photos
|
