In Ruins

Last weekend we took a few day trips to sights near Lima.  On Saturday we took a field trip, organized by our Spanish school, to Pachacamac.

stray dog on the road to the ruins

The drive from Miraflores to the Lurin Valley, where Pachacamac is located, was an educational one.   The level of poverty in the districts we drove through was shocking to both of us.  Lima was established in the desert and as the city has grown, people set up villages in the sand dunes on the outskirts of the city-center.

the yellow stairways installed by the municipality 

The below ground infrastructure is non existent; water, if there is any, is trucked in and held in rooftop storage tanks; there are no roads up through the settlements, only the yellow painted stairs that the municipality has installed in the last 6 or so years.

another shot from the taxi window on the way to ruins

There were power lines that ran to the houses, but the slapdash home construction, dirth of paved roads, the complete lack of plant life, horrible air quality and level of trash everywhere, was worse than anything we had ever seen before. We had read about the extreme disparity of wealth in Peru but this was the first time we had seen it close up. And it will not be the last.

Pachacamac (which is Wari for “Earth Creator” ) is a pre-Columbian citadel, made of small adobe bricks that are stacked liked books on a shelf to be earthquake resistant.   Pachacamac was home to an oracle and so people from all over the Andean Region made pilgrimages to the site to make offerings to the god.  At the highest point on the site lies the Temple of the Sun, where only the highest priests stayed and the most important festivals were held. Pachacamac was first established by the Lima Cuture around 200 a.d.  It was consequently occupied by and expanded by the Wari, the Ichsma, and then the Incas until 1533 when Hernando Pizarro invaded the citadel and declared Pachacamac to be a false god.

an example of the adobe brick work

Convent of the Sun Virgins (where second wives and women to be sacrificed lived)

The citadel was abandoned  shorty after Pizarro's conquest of Peru and remained abondoned until excavation began in the late 1800's.  In the 1940's certain areas, including the Convent of the Sun Virgin were renovated.

a few alpacas on the property

visitors walking the switchback up the Temple of the Sun

the main North/South route through the site

us with our classmates and guide, Juan Miguel at the Temple of the Sun

the Pacific Ocean and the Lurin River delta seen from the top