After I got my penguins it was Ritchie's turn and he wanted an adventure, a real-man-Hollywood-style-adventure. So that's what he got...
The Indiana Jones trilogy had a profound effect on my plastic imagination when I was growing up, which is why the bitterness still clings to my gums when I think of the more recent, disastrous fourth instalment of the series. Let it be known that I group the elder George Lucas in the same crowd with the likes of Slobodan Milosevic, Henry Kissinger and that mother fucker Walt Disney – for their obvious crimes of zealous egos. It’s always the same with these goddamn monsters – wielding their pride like little emperors, caring little for whatever the human toll may be and stopping at nothing until some insane prophecy has been realised. By no means was the forth episode Harrison Ford's fault - the old battle axe can't stop the process of ageing nor can he argue the plot because he's a working actor. Walk in - say the goddamn line - crack the whip - collect money and then go home to drink himself to oblivion - pacing his living room naked and howling at the memories of his beloved memory. No, definitely not... It was a one-man atrocity: devised, orchestrated and ultimately executed by that little emperor Lucas who in a bizarre last-ditch attempt for clemency sold Star Wars to Disney. Oh Chris that scoundrel bastard will strike again from the grave, mark my words!
Ever since witnessing the disaster which was the fourth Indiana Jones movie, I had to settle a debt with my own imagination - a kind of archaeological balance that needed satisfying. To my excitement we were lancing further north through the arid waste-land of Peru, fast reaching a latitude where a whole lot of crazy shit had happened. It's no secret that the original South Americans were a bunch of lunatics - hell-bent on slaughter and ritual but, as we saw in Machu Picchu, they were also highly organised and quite rational, building fantastic structures and getting traction with astronomy. They suffered, I suspect, from the same syndrome that we all collectively suffer from today: ruled by the few who are giddy on power and drunk on hymns and incantations - sustained by moral corruption and driven by the prospect of immortality and yes, I will have my day in court goddamn it.... Sorry... where was I? Although, Machu Picchu was thought to have existed as a safe haven from probably the Diegos, malaria or typhoid, it’s not typically associated with mass ritual killings, and it being universally known made it less spectacular in a mystical sense – and mysticism is what I desperately needed. And where we were headed was chock-full it - to gore myself on exotic ancient mysticism, so I could finally bury that dead horse and move on.
The base for this archaeological mission was Huanchaco, a sleepy costal town some 600km north of Ica and to get there we had to pass through the sewer that is Lima; the capital city of Peru. Oh shit...Lima... Neither of us had much of a stomach to go to Lima given the unilateral advice to avoid the city at all costs. From stabbings, muggings, muggings in taxis, car jackings, people jacking, all kinds of jackings - specifically targeting tourists, we felt the less time in Lima the better, but we had no goddamn choice - to get to Huanchaco we had to plough through Lima.
From Paracas we caught a taxi to the highway where we could flag down one of those rocket buses streaking north. Standing on the side of the highway, in amongst all the other people also waiting, we watched swarms of buses slow from light speed while men in open shirts and brown bellies hung precariously by one hand out the door whistling and screaming their destinations at the waiting people. A flurry of activity from would-be passengers on the side of the road was the signal needed for the man swinging out the door to slap the side of the bus, indicating to the driver to further retard his speed, but not to a complete standstill. You see the Peruvian bus driver loathes being static. Being still provokes a deep-vile contempt - a feeling of being robbed of all the precious momentum he had built up. In a way I don't blame him given the high price of fuel against the awful low averages of incomes. So, no matter who wants to board his rocket, they will be doing so at a fast walk or sprint - and not being able to match the docking speed of the rocket means you get exercise or get left behind. A weird form travel Darwinism where invalids and the elderly are left to fend for themselves. But never the less, because the buses are owner-operated they are highly motivated by profit, making it surprisingly efficient yet painfully stressful when catching.
A silver bus streaked from behind the sunshine and a man whistling and yelling 'Lima' swung from the door - his open shirt flapping heroically in the wind. We waved and started the docking procedure by first judging the buses velocity then trotting. The man from the door looked at our hulking backpacks with worry - such unusual dimensions, I could see him wondering. He jumped immediately into a brisk jog and opened the cargo compartment underneath. Charly wanted to confirm that the bus was in fact going to Lima. "No time for goddamn questions," the man barked while maneuvering my heavy backpack in to the cargo-hold, "Jose is going to snap if we keep this speed. QUICK! GET ON THE GODDAMN BUS!! DO IT! DO IT!! DO IT..." "Holy shit," I blurted as the man threw both of us face first into the isle of the bus. "Jesus, I'll drive this fucking thing off the goddamn cliff if we don't get moving," Jose screamed while frantically scratching the terrible ants crawling under his skin on his neck. The man jumped back on, kicking my legs out of the way to get footing, and then slapped the side of the bus twice which provoked a deep growl from Jose as he crunched through the loose gearbox trying to find second. And off we went...
The drive to Lima was along a mostly straight road which hugged the dry-flat coastline of the Pacific on our left. Occasionally the desolation of the desert was broken by slithers of irrigated areas which had diverting water from the vast network of rivers and streams that funnel down out of the Andes. A few hours later around dusk, we reached the outer rim of Lima, mostly just houses built in the desert and as we pushed further into the city centre the conditions of the buildings improved and the odd garden could be seen.
The sun had almost set and the streetlights were competing with the last rays of sunshine to illuminate the streets with an eerie glow. Because we arrived around dusk, we really didn’t realise that the city was swamped in a low-lying fog (garua) which, as it turns out, blankets Lima for six solid months. The bus finally arrived at the manic bus station where we were met by a wall of chaos – hurried unloading/loading of cargo, lost people, bus drivers yelling out destinations like: Trujillo, Huaraz and Chiclayo all names I had seen on a map somewhere. When arriving at any major bus station anywhere on this continent its best to keep momentum, a moving target is harder prey because everyone on this odyssey knows that rat bastard jackals hide in the peripheral shadows, more ready and desperate than you are… so chaos or not, you pick your bag up and spear for that exit as if the building was on fire, judge a taxi driver and flee…
We arrived at our hostel which was above a patisserie that sold chocolate filled things all looking like they were threatened to knock me off the non-diabetic wagon… The hostel was in a nice part of town and the guy running it gave solid advice of what to see and where to avoid during our 24hr stop-over. We dumped our bags went down stairs and I ate myself to sweet ketosis… a truly awful night sleep laid ahead…
The next morning we woke early, but for one to wake one first has to go to sleep which my hyper-active mind rebelled against - spending most of the night enduring violent tremors and vivid hallucinations of people-eating fog and cocaine fuelled bus drivers, screaming hail Mary and booming over cliffs. “Oh NO,” I would scream as I felt the bus’s back tyres float from the cliff and the limp bodies of men with brown bellies flying out of control - turning the inside of the bus into a bloody mess before crashing into the jagged rocks of the Pacific… All that goddamn sugar I gored on was a mistake. So, I was in no mood to walk the streets of Lima in my state – an already over-alert person by nature, I feared my exhaustion and emotional comedown would potentially invite random violence… “I can go by myself,” Charly muttered, which is and always will be the antidote for my lack of will. But the longer this thing goes on the more I’m amazed of how brave this little woman is or, how perfect her bluff has become. One of these days I'll say no and see what happens… She'll probably tell me to screw myself and walk out the door...
A few streets away from the hostel lay the coast line. The fog was thick like acrid smoke bellowing from a house fire and hung even and low in the big trees that lined the streets. The view of the coastline from the boulevard was dramatic – a 50m cliff face that spanned in groups of bays, off to the horizon in either direction – which wasn’t far given the nuclear winter-like fog.
The boulevard seemed civil enough with young women jogging and old men with papers looking for somewhere to sit, so we stretched our legs and found a little taste of home; our first shopping mall in months. Walking through that mall I felt an unsettling sensation - almost like riding a bike, the advertisements, the colours, the symbolism: all dredging up feelings of desire and essential need, it was imperative we fled before becoming marooned there with home sickness in our hearts and eager credit cards in our wallets…
Lima is known for its pockets of archaeology which are buried amongst the city and the importance of the area was confirmed with the recent discovery of a 5000 year old temple that pre-dates Stone Henge. Heading back into the city, we tried to find a particular site, however, we arrived too late. Although, Charly fluttered her lashes and pivoted around her hips which made the guards step back and unlock the door to allow us in for peek and photos. Jesus, I thought, I've never seen this kind of manipulation from her before... the saucy minx.
Just after dawn we caught a bus to Huanchaco which would get us there before midnight - booming north on a main nerve, it wasn't long until we escaped the fog and the city lights to then be dwarfed by a pristinely bright Milky Way. The drive was relatively uneventful except for the occasional surprise slamming of breaks that momentarily separated the adrenal glands from the kidneys – this however didn't seem to bother the drunken fishermen we picked up along the way. Presumably they didn’t have any kidneys. We arrived at Trujillo, the major city closest to Huanchaco, to then catch a taxi the remaining 15km along the beach to our beach-side hostel. The moon loitered low on the horizon and its light spread from its focal point all the way to the shimmering shallows where solitary fishermen continued maintaining their nets for the next days catch. Lining the tidal barrier which separated the beach from the road, leaned the fisherman’s totora boats – long canoe-like vessels made from reeds that are nimble in the surf and stable in open water. The ancient crafts stood tall above the ledge like pickets, rhythmically breaking the moonlight as we drove past - a truly stunning welcome…
Waking mid-morning we walked along the beach to see fishermen in various stages of their day: some navigating their tortoras out through the breakers and some with full nets surfing them back to shore and some already drunk on the tidal wall. These guys had been exposed to an atomic bombs worth of U.V radiation while fishing those shallows and were probably tough as leather - a simple and endearing routine of life that had occurred for centuries with little change. Charly’s stomach could be heard roaring over the sound of the surf as she was seeing various restaurants that offered ceviche; raw fish cured in lemon and lime juices. “Yum,” Charly sang. Ticking time bomb, Ritchie thought…
After lunch we planned to go to Chan Chan; an enormous ancient city built out of adobe bricks right on the beach which had been partially restored by a trust of some kind. The site lay in the desert between Huanchaco and Trujillo and to get there meant we had to catch something but there wasn't any traffic, so we hoofed it initially. Breaking the swooshing sound of the ocean reverberated an echo from several distant points – originating somewhere behind the narrow alleyways of the neighbourhood across the street. A muffled-loud sound that avoided immediate description seemed to get more distorted the louder it became. Shrieking from behind one of the big buildings came a local rocket - instantly focusing all of the out-of-sync echoes just enough to hear the thunderous roll out of Phil Collins drums in 'in the air tonight'. I'll never know if they timed that... There were no markings on this rocket and the man with the brown belly swinging out the door was yelling something but we couldn't hear what it was. It was going in the direction we needed so we jogged next to it and docked. Each rocket we had been on was different, having kind of individual personalities with various religious posters, lights, rugs and ornaments, but this one was the bare bones: vinyl seats that stuck to bear skin and two goddamn gigantic speakers mounted next to the driver - booming the Phil Collins anthology and dangerous reaching levels of noise threatening to ting the brown note. Luckily for us we were not long on that machine and skidded off when the time came...
From the street, where taxis and rockets whipped by, Chan Cahn didn't look terribly spectacular being just a wall of rocky mounds big enough to obscure the view of the ocean. Before I realised that there weren't any signs around, or if we were even at the right location, Charly had scaled the high ground and signalled that she had found our hidden city. Reaching the higher ground it was immediately apparent that the landscape had been organised at one time – all the mounds seemed to have been the buildings arranged into what may have been a labyrinth - all emanating from a mud wall fifteen meters high by eighty meters long.
Doing our best to keep off the mounds, it took many wrong guesses underneath that burning bright sun before we reached the centre which inevitably was a tourist office swarming with bored guides – and not a single other tourist around. A small indigenous woman approached us with promises of information and enlightenment. She also said that the sheer size of the site made it difficult to appreciate the area when just walking through, not knowing the significance of the spaces and we agreed…
In all directions, restoration work had repaired and rebuilt the huge adobe brick walls to original specifications, creating an honest sense of what it may have been like. The small guide said that the site originally belonged to the kingdom of the Chimu and she was a direct descendent of its peoples. A sea-faring culture that became masters of fishing and irrigation - manipulating regional water networks for use by the city of 30,000. They fostered a sophisticated culture which developed a complex hierarchical structure although doomed to be influenced by superstition and ritual…Not surprising really, given that the mountains behind them contribute to the El Niño/La Niña madness and let's not forget those fickle arseholes the tectonic plates which plotted right beneath them…
We walked through several reconstructed courtyards learning their significance and appreciating their dimensions but oddly, we were being shadowed by two goddamn gigantic Peruvian army colonels – always ten meters behind and always watching… Who knows what they were planning behind the dim reflection of their gold aviators … To them, it would have looked like I was paying attention to the little guide, naïve and unaware, but really I was mapping their motive gauging: height, weight, limps, predilection for left or right hand etc... When we would move, they would move. The little guide didn’t seem to notice their presence - or was that by conditioning… I didn’t know... The poor woman probably had been extorted since birth, desperately trying to repay her dead fathers fishing debts by luring thong wearing money sacks into the disserted site, away from witnesses… Jesus, this shit is serious, I thought. The colonels were the power around those parts and they definitely flexed it in all directions, lusting for the flesh of pale skin Germans and the heads of neurotic Australians – burning passports and putting hundreds away in some Peruvian gulag for decades at a time. There’s probably hundreds of missing backpackers buried in this place, I thought while looking at the ground, mummified in the scorched Peruvian soil.
The little guide led us into the king’s court – a massive, symmetrical open space with freakish acoustics. From the centre a person could drop a pin and the sound would ping over every grain of sand in that place, but stand just outside the door you would hear nothing – a kind of acoustic dungeon where your screams will be absorbed by trigonometry… Sweet Jesus, this is where it will all unfold, I feared… The little guide was explaining that the kingdom was eventually wiped out by the Incas which made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and my pulse quicken, thinking that was the signal for the two colonels. I spun around, kicking the dust up, expecting a bayonet or a knife carved from whale bone lunging at my throat but only saw the two colonels lazily standing in the door arch, looking at their watches to then leave… The small guide stopped mid-sentence, being jolted by my hyper-nervous behaviour. Charly grabbed me by my shoulder and asked what was wrong. I turned around and blurted, “Those savage bastards, they fucked everyone around here,” and went off to confirm that the colonels had really left…
We walked back to the road and again scaled the rocky mound to look back with our new eyes for scale and appreciation of the civilization that had built Chan Chan. Off in the distance the sun glinted from a top of another rocky mound. Straining my eyes through the wavy heat I could see it was the two Colonels, standing and staring. "Ah ha!" I yelled out while I dusted off my green hat, "You lose again!" I said as I put it on my head "What the hell is wrong with you?" Charly worryingly asked. We turned around and disappeared behind the mound and retreated back to Huanchaco for the night.
Predating most of the civilizations in the region was the Moche who had lived in the area since 150AD. The Moche Empire span some 400 km up and down the coast with the seat of power, at one time, being Huaca de la Luna and Huaca del Sol; two gargantuan pyramids made from adobe bricks which grew in height over time by the addition of layers by each subsequent king. We again walked next to the beach to see what we could catch to the site and found a man asleep on the bonnet of a taxi – sunning his torso with his shirt open. Charly poked the sleeping man and asked if he was able to take us there. The man woke with fear, leaping to his feet. “What the hell do you want?” the man snapped while wiping the sweat of his stomach. Charly asked him again to take us to the Huaca de la Luna. He looked sideways at us, rubbed his face in both of his hands, cleaned his moustache and stared off at the horizon, “For you, 15 soles each. No less!” We nodded at the man and got in. He marched to the driver seat, swung open the door and leant in to grab a 10L bottle of water. He popped the bonnet and emptied all 10L into the radiator. Got back in and tried to start the rusty relic. “Arggh,” the man moaned, “Vamos chancho!” After five minutes of shaking the steering wheel and intermittent screams of lucid panic, the engine caught and rumbled to a horrible tone. “Listo,” the man said proudly and off we went – slamming it into gear and dropping the clutch.
We passed through Trujillo and briefly joined the highway heading south before taking a sharp left towards Huaca de la Luna. “Aqui!” the man said when pointing at the bottom of a large mountain off in the distance. In front of the mountain were the two pyramids, their surfaces seemed smooth from a distance but the closer you got the more you could see the pixilation from the millions and millions of adobe bricks.
We entered the open courtyard of the tourist centre where various vendors occupied little shops, displaying what they had to offer. We arranged a tour and sat beneath a tree in the centre to wait the arrival of two other tourists. Above us was a kettle of vultures – maybe three or four, all squawking their murderous songs, surely scaring the shit out of every tiny mammal within hearing distance. Another strange sound could be heard within the courtyard, a kind of drunken parrot or maybe a peaking junky scrambling to undo the tourniquet before the smack burns a hole in his arm and blasting out of one of the shops bound a daemon straight from Dante’s inferno… “Sweet Mary! Look at that fucker,” I shouted, as I reached for my rosary beads. The daemon looked like the methamphetamine abused shell of an Alsatan… haha sorry… Its body flamed hairless leaving a charred black hide and its dead black eyes were, for the moment, fixated on a bone - probably a femur from some sacrificed large biped… Realizing that this beast was a juvenile I considered the mother wouldn’t be too far away, thinking that even daemons have basic maternal obligations.
Charly had some kind of daemonic intrigue with the feasting beast, getting closer making ‘aww’ and “isn’t it cute” sounds, clearly showing the early signs of diabolical infestation… I stood a good meter behind Charly and the hell dog, squeezing the rosary beads tight while I frantically recited the only line of that thing goddamn prayer I can never remember the name of ; “Give us this day our daily bread, give us this day our daily bread, give us this day our daily bread, GIVE US THIS DAY OUR DAILY BREAD!” “SHUT UP!” Charly growled, “What fucking bread!” I took a step back and swiped the holy trinity in front of me whilst thinking; indeed our daily bread… The guide came out of the office with two Kiwi tourists who seemed reluctant to spend any time with me…
The guide saw the interest that hell dog provoked and did her best to persuade that the reason hell dog was hell dog had less to do judeo-christian dogma (arf arf) and more to do with a hyperactive metabolism that apparently is common amongst its breed: Perro Sin Pelo del Perú. The guide bent down to pat hell dog and mentioned that with their hyper-metabolism they are warmer than other dogs with a temperature of 40 degrees and that they were almost wiped out by the Spanish which had a holy vendetta against the beasts blood line. The guide stood up and dusted off her hands and said, "Vamos chicos!" explaining that her shift was nearly over for the day, so we began walking up the path to the pyramid. Half way there an almighty howl screeched through the valley, scaring off the kettle of vultures. I turned around to see hell dog running full speed out of the court yard booming straight for us and blurted, "Jesus, this thing is going to murder as all! We've got to run goddamn it!" "I can't, I've got a dicky hup," one of the Kiwi girls complained. The guide laughed, saying that hell dog hated being alone and would probably follow us over the entire site. Hell dog could hear a faint pulse in the ankles of the two Kiwi girls who were only wearing sandals and made his first pass swiftly, attacking and nipping the vulnerable joint. Both of the Kiwi girls leaped with fright and did their best to defend themselves, kicking and swiping at hell dog but lucky for everyone he disappeared up into the pyramid. "Oh ho," the guide laughed, "he could be anywhere up there..."
We walked on a big wooden ramp that took us all the way to the top of the pyramid which gave a spectacular view of the surrounding desert. Immediately we were seeing colourful mosaics that had been preserved by the climate or uncovered by archaeologists. The theme of the mosaics was intimidation - gigantic angry red and yellow medusa-like faces but on closer inspection, images of crabs, snakes and octopuses could also be seen, suggesting a deep respect for the natural world around them.
Looking north of the pyramid, the low Andes could be seen in a 120 degree arc from the north to the south-east. To the North West, two kilometres away, was the agrarian city of Trujillo which was probably established around the snaking river which had carved a route all the way from the snow-melt of the Andean plateau: 300km away. Before the Diegos arrived, it is believed that a vast-sprawling city existed around the base of the pyramids – housing all the people that serviced the kingdom. To expedite the plundering of the gold in the area, the Diegos re-diverted the river to sweep by the base of the pyramid – presumably creating a super highway of gold and treasure, headed all the way up to Colombia, but also swept away most of the town with it.
We scaled up and down stairs over gangplanks and walkways - appreciating the obvious layers and interesting symmetry of the excavated rooms. Yes indeed, this pyramid was spectacular although it is believed not a great deal of treasure was ever stored there. The guide went on to explain the primary, more violent function of the pyramid as we scaled more steps reaching a large flat slab of stone protruding from the edge - exposed to the outside of the pyramid. She said that the pyramid was a gigantic tomb for kings but the Moche people were thirsty for sacrifice and the higher echelons of power based their understanding of the natural world on it: sacrificing for rain, earthquakes, floods, famine. The majority of people sacrificed, the guide explained, were warriors that had lost a duel, which meant being bludgeoned to death on the big slab of stone in front of a frenzied Moche crowd jonesing for dismemberment...
Standing looking out over that ledge my mind snapped. I imagined a pack of hell dogs and a dozen or so Moche warriors in full battle regalia and war paint, chasing a dusty Indiana Jones out of the bowels of the pyramid after he evaded sacrifice by whipping the teeth and eyes of several men with the supersonic crack of his whip. Scampering frantically up the mosaic walls with one hand on his dusty hat the other ready for action, he did his best not to spill the contents of his satchel which was a small solid jade relic - believed by the locals to have something to do with something. Reaching the top of the mosaic wall Indy hastily spins, kicking the face of the closest perusing Moche warrior causing an avalanche of men tumbling down. Hearing the rumble of his getaway off in this distance he is relieved that Hancock wasn't passed out in some backwater Peruvian brothel and kept his solid word - although not like last time, he thought. Indy sees a priest standing on the ledge facing out towards the chanting people while screaming in dialect and holding the severed head of a sacrificed warrior whose beheaded-bound body lay in a pool of blood on the slab of stone behind. The Moche warriors again climbed the mosaic walls in disorganised pursuit, grunting oogah boogah. Indy’s glare focused as he realised the only way out is to take his chances by ploughing through that goddamn priest and leaping from the ledge. The rumble of his getaway became louder and louder and the priest stopped shouting and turned around, startled to see Indy. "Walla Walla," the priest commanded the pursing Moche warriors. Indy checked the buckle on the satchel and held his hat firm to his head and sprinted at the priest. "WALLA WALLA!" the priest screamed in horror but the sound was lost in the roar of Indy's getaway. Indy charged and rammed into the priest then leaped from the ledge with two arms out stretched, just able to grab the undercarriage of the swooping Ford Tri-Motor aeroplane flown by that semi-reliable drunk Hancock. Indy turned around just in time to see the priest fall the 50m to the ground. Slamming into the dusty dry desert, sending the decapitated skull skittling through the crowd. The Moche people beneath coward from the sight of the unusually large vulture but when the shadow had passed they returned back to the orgy of gore - dismembering the priest limb from limb. Hancock climbed steeply to escape the volley of spears, arrows and blow darts from the defeated Moche warriors... Indy didn't know it, but they were leaking a pink volatile fluid from a hole made by one of the arrows... There adventure was about to begin…
The guide led us away from the ledge to the backside of the pyramid where there was a half exposed VW-sized rock. She said that archaeologists thought that the only sacrifices had occurred on the large slab of stone up on top of the pyramid, until they discovered hundreds of dismembered bodies buried around the half exposed rock. The eerie aspect about the bones in this grave, she said, was that they all had etchings on the tops of the long bones - suggesting that the muscle had been stripped off the skeleton... Another perplexing finding was that all the bodies were buried in torrential rains. So, in dry or wet conditions these guys were totally insane...
Looking at the area surrounding the exposed rock and wading in its significance another terrible howl blasted from the pyramid behind us destroying the serenity and building the fear. We turned around to see hell dog standing dominant – perched high on the ledge, sampling the air but he wasn’t alone this time – hell dog’s mother was with him.
“Jesus!” I shouted. “Oh no,” the Kiwi girls whimpered – their ankles still a bloody mess from the last encounter. Hell dog growled and disappeared from the ledge. “Oh noou brew,” one of the Kiwis cried as they jumped behind me for some kind of protection. We had a fight on our hands, so I reached again for the rosary beads – fumbling its wretched knot in my pocket. Hell dog reached the bottom and was at full speed with his mum barking and growling behind. I corralled the four girls behind me and held my arm out at a 70 degree angle – the rosary beads dangling from my pink clenched fist and started screaming, “GIVE US DAILY BREAD, DAILY BREAD, DAILY BREAD, BREAD!” My right foot inside my heavy hiking boot was planted half a meter behind my centre of gravity – if the incantation failed I would let it loose on a kicking spree until nothing was left breathing. Hell dog was about to leap for my throat when suddenly the mum tackled him – both coming to a skidding halt a meter in front of me in a plume of dust. Hell dog wriggled and rapid fired squeals and cries while his mothers paw pinned him to the ground. She looked up at me with those dead pearl black eyes, realising what those beads meant but her young Turk still had to learn the ropes and that was not the time…
Our day was over but we still had to get back to Huanchaco, so we said out piece and left - keeping one eye on that goddamn hell dog. Waiting in the car park was a empty rocket headed for Trujillo, destined to drop us off on a roundabout where we could catch another rocket out to the beach. The rocket dropped us off on the hellish roundabout around dusk – peak hour downtown Trujillo is just as manic as any other place I had ever seen around the same time of day. We realised that we were on the wrong side of the roundabout and needed to get to the other side – seeing our rocket waiting on the other side added suspense as we ran across four lanes of homicidal maniacs. Our rocket started to pull away just as we reached it and a young guy hanging out the door saw our effort and gestured to the driver to slow down, which he did – we hoped on and payed the young man for our fair. He smiled at me and turned around and slapped the driver on the shoulder, showed him the money and dropped it in his tin. Five seconds later, a voice erupted from the back of the rocket – rapping in Spanish. I turned around to see a guy with speakers, standing on the spot waving his hands like he was declining something and yelling something about truth... Half way through, what presumably was the bridge of the song, the guy who took our fare also started to rap... And I mean like crazy – switching rapidly through sex, geo-politics, poverty and fashion. The rap stopped and the two guys collected tips. I gave the guy more money and he got off. Nice young man, I thought…
The next day we headed a further 200km north to Chiclayo: a moderately large city in the dustbowl of the Peruvian hinterland, significant for its proximity to Sipán. Sipán was the third and final destination of this archaeological fix and in many ways, was the summit of importance for us and the region because in 1987 in the area of Sipán a series of tombs called Huaca Rajada were found untouched by those thieves or those rat bastard Diegos…
Being the regional centre, Chiclayo revolved around everyday life – a working city, not really geared for tourism which maybe why people stopped what they were doing to watch my beard pass. Our hotel was ran by a nice couple who were 150 years old and the foyer smelling like a mixture between formaldehyde and bleach gave a clue to their longevity. They drew on a map where we were and hatched in red lines the areas to avoid – which turned out to be everywhere except a fine corridor from our front door to the city centre a block away. From the foyer I could see a business across the road that sold uniforms - claiming to be Chiclayo's only "seguro" or "reliable" military and police uniform store: no I.D. required! As we walked by the store on the way to the tour office, I inspected through the glass window, a very smart looking Air Marshals uniform: medals included; all for $20. I imagined buying and wearing one of those blue Peruvian Air Marshall uniforms and strutting, with total command, through the red-hatched bad lands to our tour office. If some naive young punk had a crack at us, I would simply push him aside with mighty force, point my finger at the clouds and yell, I COMMAND THE GODDAMN SKIES, WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU! Surely the young punk would know enough not to mess with an Air Marshall...
The next day we were off to see the Huaca Rajada tomb in Sipán: a 35km drive inland through menacing bus-sized pot holes and vibrant green farms. The van momentarily slowed for a crowd that had amassed on the side of the road - all inspecting the smouldering wreckage of what looked like to be a vintage plane that had ploughed into the ground at a shallow angle... After roughly 90 minutes we entered the village of Sipán, which was a small community built around the constant flow of tourists that came to see Huaca Rajada.
Immediately in unison the people in the bus gasped at the sight of the khaki-coloured Huaca Rajada rising tall above the bright green fields and trees like some kind of fictional ant mount. The site consisted of several tall mounds or mausoleums, all made from millions of stacked adobe bricks, which at one stage, formed a smooth exterior but the inevitable millennia of erosion had rutted and pitted the surfaces. The van stopped, by design, right next to a line of locals selling items relevant to the area. A young girl carrying a felt board, larger than her, displaying earrings was already leaning inside the car, waving the big felt board around making the earrings jingle with the motion. Her mood was spiteful when people either declined the proposal or ignored her completely.
The guide led us up the steep mound straight to the huge fenced-off burial site where they found Mr Sipán. The grave was as they had discovered it nearly 30 years ago but the precious contents had been moved to a museum near Chiclayo and had since replaced it with replica skeletons and treasures. The tomb was as deep as it was wide with the king, in full regalia, being the focal point. Lying on either side of him were the remains of two women and at his feet was the skeleton of a llama. Scattered all around the tomb were various items of value including hundreds of clay pots and the skeletons of his maids and hell dogs.
The most interesting aspect of this tomb was the footless skeleton sitting on a ledge close to the top, where the people would have closed the tomb. The guide explained that the kings of the day were materialistic-narcissists and even in death somewhat worried about their wealth, so they cut the feet of a warrior and buried him alive... so he couldn't run away...
"But apparently Mr Sipán was different," the guide said, while kneeling down next to the big tomb... "Born as twin, he and his Brother Fidel entered the world minutes apart yet one was born in sunshine and one in complete darkness... It is said that the sun drowned for a short time when Fidel was born casting the land in shadow; the worst of the worst type of omen. The two boys were inseparable growing up, not realising that one day one of them would be crowned King. Fidel became increasingly jealous of their fathers favouritism towards his brother- praising him at every opportunity and eventually crowning him king, endowing him with the protection of the green semptial stone; the fulcrum of all natural order - possessing untold power. The stone sat embossed in the centre of the giant gold crown perched on top of Mr Sipán's head which he guarded purposefully and used its power respectfully - providing steady rains and nourishing soils for the land and its people. Jealousy and hate for his brother filled Fidel's soul which led him to one night sneak into his brother’s room and maul him to death with a 30cm whale bone machete, stealing the semptial stone." The guide looked up and surveyed the arid hills and deserts off to the east and mentioned that since that day Peru has been virtually a desert and the legend says until the stone is returned to the crown, Peru will forever be doomed...
To contextualise the whole tour the van headed back to Lambayeque: a town close to Chiclayo where they had built the museum: Museo Tumbas Reales del Senior de Sipan, which guarded the treasures of the tombs. Being the pride of the region, the museum was built to impress: its sleek red surface leaping out of the ground at obtuse angles, imitating the original look of the pyramids and forming drama worthy of its significant contents.
Inside, gold could be seen illuminated in individual display cases showing hundreds of different shapes - from intricate gold welded hinges to large face shields. Some of the shields were smelted with copper and on one particular shield you could see the oxidised outline of someone's fingerprint adding a familiar human dimension. The dark exhibition funnelled visitors through a casino-like maze of treasures, eventually leading to the prized piece being Mr Sipán himself – displayed as he was buried, bones and all. Looking like he was borne from sunshine with all the gold ornaments laying flat on his bones, it was easy to see the void left by the stolen semptial stone in his crown...
Suddenly, a shattering eruption could be heard either in the roof or near the entrance causing the men to jerk and the women to scream. The guards touched their ears with incoming information and boomed off down the corridor screaming things like: tengo, beta and foxtrot. I felt a small tremor humming under my foot and I looked at the floor to see a crack slowly forming on the tile in front of me. The tremor grew to a quake, violently shaking the building, knocking over displays and ill-balanced Peruvians. Then suddenly the shacking stopped – everybody looked at each other with relief then… BOOOM! The floor exploded upwards sending shrapnel of concrete and tiles all over the room and rushing out of the crater were hundreds of Moche warriors all grunting! In an instant Charly had taken a few of them out but some of the Moche warriors were already gnawing on the lifeless corpses of their Peruvian victims. Hell had erupted in that room – blood strewn across confused faces, limbs being used as weapons and Charly hysterically laughing while piling a mound of dead warriors in the corner. The flood of warriors through the crater had thickened and all hope of surviving the nightmare had evaporated when symphonised horns and trumpets could be heard. “What the fuck is that music!” Charly screamed as she dumped another body on her mound. “I don’t know!” I screamed back and then a green light caught my eye high in the roof, I looked up to see Indy fighting his way across a gangplank hoisted above – the green light burning bright through his satchel bag. One by one he knocked the brutes out of his way but the flood of warriors was too much, so he grabbed his whip, cracked it and lassoed the light fixture that swung high above the room and then leapt. All the Moche warriors sprung in the air, swiping their claws at him but he was too swift. At the end of his swing, right above the King of Sipáns exhibition, he let go – falling vertically, crashing through the display glass landing right on top Mr Sipán bones. All the warriors panicked and rushed towards the display but it was too late. Indy looked up at the Moche warriors bearing down on him and screamed, “SEE YOU IN HELL!” as he slammed the semptial stone into its place in the gold crown sending a thunderous concussion outwards - knocking everyone on their arse. The Moche warriors eyes filled with fear as a bright green ball of energy glowed around the stone – getting louder and brighter. Without warning hundreds of yellow and blue lightning bolts zapped out of the energy ball, striking every single warrior in the forehead – momentarily causing them to jolt violently and catch fire before exploding into trillions of atoms… The room fell silent and shortly after the rustling of broken glass could be heard. I looked at the edge of the pit where Indy fell and I saw a bloody hand firmly grab the edge of the display – and pulling himself up was Indy. He paused on the ledge and gave a dreamy grin before fully escaping the pit. Standing up seeing all the devastation, he looked at me and said, “Hey kid, can you get that for me,” - pointing at my feet. I looked down as saw his brown fedora - sitting upside down in front of me. I knelt down, picked it up and gave it to him. Indy dusted and wiped of the small shards of glass and calmly put it back on his head and said, “Let's take a look outside.” We left the museum and felt the first sprinkles of rain…
Witnessing the magnificence he had unleashed, Indy lost his composure and broke down - falling to his knees and started to weep...
"I hate the things he makes me do," Indy sobbed.
"Jesus Indy, what things?" I asked.
"That thing in the Amazon with the aliens, he had no right, goddamn it!"
"I know Indy," I said while putting my hand on his shoulder, "I know."
Indy wiped the tears from his eyes and stood up - looking out over the greening desert. "This, this was beautiful. Thank you," he said with a quiver in his tone.
"No thank you, Sir," I replied as we embraced.
From Paracas we caught a taxi to the highway where we could flag down one of those rocket buses streaking north. Standing on the side of the highway, in amongst all the other people also waiting, we watched swarms of buses slow from light speed while men in open shirts and brown bellies hung precariously by one hand out the door whistling and screaming their destinations at the waiting people. A flurry of activity from would-be passengers on the side of the road was the signal needed for the man swinging out the door to slap the side of the bus, indicating to the driver to further retard his speed, but not to a complete standstill. You see the Peruvian bus driver loathes being static. Being still provokes a deep-vile contempt - a feeling of being robbed of all the precious momentum he had built up. In a way I don't blame him given the high price of fuel against the awful low averages of incomes. So, no matter who wants to board his rocket, they will be doing so at a fast walk or sprint - and not being able to match the docking speed of the rocket means you get exercise or get left behind. A weird form travel Darwinism where invalids and the elderly are left to fend for themselves. But never the less, because the buses are owner-operated they are highly motivated by profit, making it surprisingly efficient yet painfully stressful when catching.
A silver bus streaked from behind the sunshine and a man whistling and yelling 'Lima' swung from the door - his open shirt flapping heroically in the wind. We waved and started the docking procedure by first judging the buses velocity then trotting. The man from the door looked at our hulking backpacks with worry - such unusual dimensions, I could see him wondering. He jumped immediately into a brisk jog and opened the cargo compartment underneath. Charly wanted to confirm that the bus was in fact going to Lima. "No time for goddamn questions," the man barked while maneuvering my heavy backpack in to the cargo-hold, "Jose is going to snap if we keep this speed. QUICK! GET ON THE GODDAMN BUS!! DO IT! DO IT!! DO IT..." "Holy shit," I blurted as the man threw both of us face first into the isle of the bus. "Jesus, I'll drive this fucking thing off the goddamn cliff if we don't get moving," Jose screamed while frantically scratching the terrible ants crawling under his skin on his neck. The man jumped back on, kicking my legs out of the way to get footing, and then slapped the side of the bus twice which provoked a deep growl from Jose as he crunched through the loose gearbox trying to find second. And off we went...
The drive to Lima was along a mostly straight road which hugged the dry-flat coastline of the Pacific on our left. Occasionally the desolation of the desert was broken by slithers of irrigated areas which had diverting water from the vast network of rivers and streams that funnel down out of the Andes. A few hours later around dusk, we reached the outer rim of Lima, mostly just houses built in the desert and as we pushed further into the city centre the conditions of the buildings improved and the odd garden could be seen.
The sun had almost set and the streetlights were competing with the last rays of sunshine to illuminate the streets with an eerie glow. Because we arrived around dusk, we really didn’t realise that the city was swamped in a low-lying fog (garua) which, as it turns out, blankets Lima for six solid months. The bus finally arrived at the manic bus station where we were met by a wall of chaos – hurried unloading/loading of cargo, lost people, bus drivers yelling out destinations like: Trujillo, Huaraz and Chiclayo all names I had seen on a map somewhere. When arriving at any major bus station anywhere on this continent its best to keep momentum, a moving target is harder prey because everyone on this odyssey knows that rat bastard jackals hide in the peripheral shadows, more ready and desperate than you are… so chaos or not, you pick your bag up and spear for that exit as if the building was on fire, judge a taxi driver and flee…
We arrived at our hostel which was above a patisserie that sold chocolate filled things all looking like they were threatened to knock me off the non-diabetic wagon… The hostel was in a nice part of town and the guy running it gave solid advice of what to see and where to avoid during our 24hr stop-over. We dumped our bags went down stairs and I ate myself to sweet ketosis… a truly awful night sleep laid ahead…
The next morning we woke early, but for one to wake one first has to go to sleep which my hyper-active mind rebelled against - spending most of the night enduring violent tremors and vivid hallucinations of people-eating fog and cocaine fuelled bus drivers, screaming hail Mary and booming over cliffs. “Oh NO,” I would scream as I felt the bus’s back tyres float from the cliff and the limp bodies of men with brown bellies flying out of control - turning the inside of the bus into a bloody mess before crashing into the jagged rocks of the Pacific… All that goddamn sugar I gored on was a mistake. So, I was in no mood to walk the streets of Lima in my state – an already over-alert person by nature, I feared my exhaustion and emotional comedown would potentially invite random violence… “I can go by myself,” Charly muttered, which is and always will be the antidote for my lack of will. But the longer this thing goes on the more I’m amazed of how brave this little woman is or, how perfect her bluff has become. One of these days I'll say no and see what happens… She'll probably tell me to screw myself and walk out the door...
A few streets away from the hostel lay the coast line. The fog was thick like acrid smoke bellowing from a house fire and hung even and low in the big trees that lined the streets. The view of the coastline from the boulevard was dramatic – a 50m cliff face that spanned in groups of bays, off to the horizon in either direction – which wasn’t far given the nuclear winter-like fog.
The boulevard seemed civil enough with young women jogging and old men with papers looking for somewhere to sit, so we stretched our legs and found a little taste of home; our first shopping mall in months. Walking through that mall I felt an unsettling sensation - almost like riding a bike, the advertisements, the colours, the symbolism: all dredging up feelings of desire and essential need, it was imperative we fled before becoming marooned there with home sickness in our hearts and eager credit cards in our wallets…
Lima is known for its pockets of archaeology which are buried amongst the city and the importance of the area was confirmed with the recent discovery of a 5000 year old temple that pre-dates Stone Henge. Heading back into the city, we tried to find a particular site, however, we arrived too late. Although, Charly fluttered her lashes and pivoted around her hips which made the guards step back and unlock the door to allow us in for peek and photos. Jesus, I thought, I've never seen this kind of manipulation from her before... the saucy minx.
Just after dawn we caught a bus to Huanchaco which would get us there before midnight - booming north on a main nerve, it wasn't long until we escaped the fog and the city lights to then be dwarfed by a pristinely bright Milky Way. The drive was relatively uneventful except for the occasional surprise slamming of breaks that momentarily separated the adrenal glands from the kidneys – this however didn't seem to bother the drunken fishermen we picked up along the way. Presumably they didn’t have any kidneys. We arrived at Trujillo, the major city closest to Huanchaco, to then catch a taxi the remaining 15km along the beach to our beach-side hostel. The moon loitered low on the horizon and its light spread from its focal point all the way to the shimmering shallows where solitary fishermen continued maintaining their nets for the next days catch. Lining the tidal barrier which separated the beach from the road, leaned the fisherman’s totora boats – long canoe-like vessels made from reeds that are nimble in the surf and stable in open water. The ancient crafts stood tall above the ledge like pickets, rhythmically breaking the moonlight as we drove past - a truly stunning welcome…
Waking mid-morning we walked along the beach to see fishermen in various stages of their day: some navigating their tortoras out through the breakers and some with full nets surfing them back to shore and some already drunk on the tidal wall. These guys had been exposed to an atomic bombs worth of U.V radiation while fishing those shallows and were probably tough as leather - a simple and endearing routine of life that had occurred for centuries with little change. Charly’s stomach could be heard roaring over the sound of the surf as she was seeing various restaurants that offered ceviche; raw fish cured in lemon and lime juices. “Yum,” Charly sang. Ticking time bomb, Ritchie thought…
After lunch we planned to go to Chan Chan; an enormous ancient city built out of adobe bricks right on the beach which had been partially restored by a trust of some kind. The site lay in the desert between Huanchaco and Trujillo and to get there meant we had to catch something but there wasn't any traffic, so we hoofed it initially. Breaking the swooshing sound of the ocean reverberated an echo from several distant points – originating somewhere behind the narrow alleyways of the neighbourhood across the street. A muffled-loud sound that avoided immediate description seemed to get more distorted the louder it became. Shrieking from behind one of the big buildings came a local rocket - instantly focusing all of the out-of-sync echoes just enough to hear the thunderous roll out of Phil Collins drums in 'in the air tonight'. I'll never know if they timed that... There were no markings on this rocket and the man with the brown belly swinging out the door was yelling something but we couldn't hear what it was. It was going in the direction we needed so we jogged next to it and docked. Each rocket we had been on was different, having kind of individual personalities with various religious posters, lights, rugs and ornaments, but this one was the bare bones: vinyl seats that stuck to bear skin and two goddamn gigantic speakers mounted next to the driver - booming the Phil Collins anthology and dangerous reaching levels of noise threatening to ting the brown note. Luckily for us we were not long on that machine and skidded off when the time came...
From the street, where taxis and rockets whipped by, Chan Cahn didn't look terribly spectacular being just a wall of rocky mounds big enough to obscure the view of the ocean. Before I realised that there weren't any signs around, or if we were even at the right location, Charly had scaled the high ground and signalled that she had found our hidden city. Reaching the higher ground it was immediately apparent that the landscape had been organised at one time – all the mounds seemed to have been the buildings arranged into what may have been a labyrinth - all emanating from a mud wall fifteen meters high by eighty meters long.
Doing our best to keep off the mounds, it took many wrong guesses underneath that burning bright sun before we reached the centre which inevitably was a tourist office swarming with bored guides – and not a single other tourist around. A small indigenous woman approached us with promises of information and enlightenment. She also said that the sheer size of the site made it difficult to appreciate the area when just walking through, not knowing the significance of the spaces and we agreed…
In all directions, restoration work had repaired and rebuilt the huge adobe brick walls to original specifications, creating an honest sense of what it may have been like. The small guide said that the site originally belonged to the kingdom of the Chimu and she was a direct descendent of its peoples. A sea-faring culture that became masters of fishing and irrigation - manipulating regional water networks for use by the city of 30,000. They fostered a sophisticated culture which developed a complex hierarchical structure although doomed to be influenced by superstition and ritual…Not surprising really, given that the mountains behind them contribute to the El Niño/La Niña madness and let's not forget those fickle arseholes the tectonic plates which plotted right beneath them…
We walked through several reconstructed courtyards learning their significance and appreciating their dimensions but oddly, we were being shadowed by two goddamn gigantic Peruvian army colonels – always ten meters behind and always watching… Who knows what they were planning behind the dim reflection of their gold aviators … To them, it would have looked like I was paying attention to the little guide, naïve and unaware, but really I was mapping their motive gauging: height, weight, limps, predilection for left or right hand etc... When we would move, they would move. The little guide didn’t seem to notice their presence - or was that by conditioning… I didn’t know... The poor woman probably had been extorted since birth, desperately trying to repay her dead fathers fishing debts by luring thong wearing money sacks into the disserted site, away from witnesses… Jesus, this shit is serious, I thought. The colonels were the power around those parts and they definitely flexed it in all directions, lusting for the flesh of pale skin Germans and the heads of neurotic Australians – burning passports and putting hundreds away in some Peruvian gulag for decades at a time. There’s probably hundreds of missing backpackers buried in this place, I thought while looking at the ground, mummified in the scorched Peruvian soil.
The little guide led us into the king’s court – a massive, symmetrical open space with freakish acoustics. From the centre a person could drop a pin and the sound would ping over every grain of sand in that place, but stand just outside the door you would hear nothing – a kind of acoustic dungeon where your screams will be absorbed by trigonometry… Sweet Jesus, this is where it will all unfold, I feared… The little guide was explaining that the kingdom was eventually wiped out by the Incas which made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and my pulse quicken, thinking that was the signal for the two colonels. I spun around, kicking the dust up, expecting a bayonet or a knife carved from whale bone lunging at my throat but only saw the two colonels lazily standing in the door arch, looking at their watches to then leave… The small guide stopped mid-sentence, being jolted by my hyper-nervous behaviour. Charly grabbed me by my shoulder and asked what was wrong. I turned around and blurted, “Those savage bastards, they fucked everyone around here,” and went off to confirm that the colonels had really left…
We walked back to the road and again scaled the rocky mound to look back with our new eyes for scale and appreciation of the civilization that had built Chan Chan. Off in the distance the sun glinted from a top of another rocky mound. Straining my eyes through the wavy heat I could see it was the two Colonels, standing and staring. "Ah ha!" I yelled out while I dusted off my green hat, "You lose again!" I said as I put it on my head "What the hell is wrong with you?" Charly worryingly asked. We turned around and disappeared behind the mound and retreated back to Huanchaco for the night.
Predating most of the civilizations in the region was the Moche who had lived in the area since 150AD. The Moche Empire span some 400 km up and down the coast with the seat of power, at one time, being Huaca de la Luna and Huaca del Sol; two gargantuan pyramids made from adobe bricks which grew in height over time by the addition of layers by each subsequent king. We again walked next to the beach to see what we could catch to the site and found a man asleep on the bonnet of a taxi – sunning his torso with his shirt open. Charly poked the sleeping man and asked if he was able to take us there. The man woke with fear, leaping to his feet. “What the hell do you want?” the man snapped while wiping the sweat of his stomach. Charly asked him again to take us to the Huaca de la Luna. He looked sideways at us, rubbed his face in both of his hands, cleaned his moustache and stared off at the horizon, “For you, 15 soles each. No less!” We nodded at the man and got in. He marched to the driver seat, swung open the door and leant in to grab a 10L bottle of water. He popped the bonnet and emptied all 10L into the radiator. Got back in and tried to start the rusty relic. “Arggh,” the man moaned, “Vamos chancho!” After five minutes of shaking the steering wheel and intermittent screams of lucid panic, the engine caught and rumbled to a horrible tone. “Listo,” the man said proudly and off we went – slamming it into gear and dropping the clutch.
We passed through Trujillo and briefly joined the highway heading south before taking a sharp left towards Huaca de la Luna. “Aqui!” the man said when pointing at the bottom of a large mountain off in the distance. In front of the mountain were the two pyramids, their surfaces seemed smooth from a distance but the closer you got the more you could see the pixilation from the millions and millions of adobe bricks.
We entered the open courtyard of the tourist centre where various vendors occupied little shops, displaying what they had to offer. We arranged a tour and sat beneath a tree in the centre to wait the arrival of two other tourists. Above us was a kettle of vultures – maybe three or four, all squawking their murderous songs, surely scaring the shit out of every tiny mammal within hearing distance. Another strange sound could be heard within the courtyard, a kind of drunken parrot or maybe a peaking junky scrambling to undo the tourniquet before the smack burns a hole in his arm and blasting out of one of the shops bound a daemon straight from Dante’s inferno… “Sweet Mary! Look at that fucker,” I shouted, as I reached for my rosary beads. The daemon looked like the methamphetamine abused shell of an Alsatan… haha sorry… Its body flamed hairless leaving a charred black hide and its dead black eyes were, for the moment, fixated on a bone - probably a femur from some sacrificed large biped… Realizing that this beast was a juvenile I considered the mother wouldn’t be too far away, thinking that even daemons have basic maternal obligations.
Charly had some kind of daemonic intrigue with the feasting beast, getting closer making ‘aww’ and “isn’t it cute” sounds, clearly showing the early signs of diabolical infestation… I stood a good meter behind Charly and the hell dog, squeezing the rosary beads tight while I frantically recited the only line of that thing goddamn prayer I can never remember the name of ; “Give us this day our daily bread, give us this day our daily bread, give us this day our daily bread, GIVE US THIS DAY OUR DAILY BREAD!” “SHUT UP!” Charly growled, “What fucking bread!” I took a step back and swiped the holy trinity in front of me whilst thinking; indeed our daily bread… The guide came out of the office with two Kiwi tourists who seemed reluctant to spend any time with me…
The guide saw the interest that hell dog provoked and did her best to persuade that the reason hell dog was hell dog had less to do judeo-christian dogma (arf arf) and more to do with a hyperactive metabolism that apparently is common amongst its breed: Perro Sin Pelo del Perú. The guide bent down to pat hell dog and mentioned that with their hyper-metabolism they are warmer than other dogs with a temperature of 40 degrees and that they were almost wiped out by the Spanish which had a holy vendetta against the beasts blood line. The guide stood up and dusted off her hands and said, "Vamos chicos!" explaining that her shift was nearly over for the day, so we began walking up the path to the pyramid. Half way there an almighty howl screeched through the valley, scaring off the kettle of vultures. I turned around to see hell dog running full speed out of the court yard booming straight for us and blurted, "Jesus, this thing is going to murder as all! We've got to run goddamn it!" "I can't, I've got a dicky hup," one of the Kiwi girls complained. The guide laughed, saying that hell dog hated being alone and would probably follow us over the entire site. Hell dog could hear a faint pulse in the ankles of the two Kiwi girls who were only wearing sandals and made his first pass swiftly, attacking and nipping the vulnerable joint. Both of the Kiwi girls leaped with fright and did their best to defend themselves, kicking and swiping at hell dog but lucky for everyone he disappeared up into the pyramid. "Oh ho," the guide laughed, "he could be anywhere up there..."
We walked on a big wooden ramp that took us all the way to the top of the pyramid which gave a spectacular view of the surrounding desert. Immediately we were seeing colourful mosaics that had been preserved by the climate or uncovered by archaeologists. The theme of the mosaics was intimidation - gigantic angry red and yellow medusa-like faces but on closer inspection, images of crabs, snakes and octopuses could also be seen, suggesting a deep respect for the natural world around them.
Looking north of the pyramid, the low Andes could be seen in a 120 degree arc from the north to the south-east. To the North West, two kilometres away, was the agrarian city of Trujillo which was probably established around the snaking river which had carved a route all the way from the snow-melt of the Andean plateau: 300km away. Before the Diegos arrived, it is believed that a vast-sprawling city existed around the base of the pyramids – housing all the people that serviced the kingdom. To expedite the plundering of the gold in the area, the Diegos re-diverted the river to sweep by the base of the pyramid – presumably creating a super highway of gold and treasure, headed all the way up to Colombia, but also swept away most of the town with it.
We scaled up and down stairs over gangplanks and walkways - appreciating the obvious layers and interesting symmetry of the excavated rooms. Yes indeed, this pyramid was spectacular although it is believed not a great deal of treasure was ever stored there. The guide went on to explain the primary, more violent function of the pyramid as we scaled more steps reaching a large flat slab of stone protruding from the edge - exposed to the outside of the pyramid. She said that the pyramid was a gigantic tomb for kings but the Moche people were thirsty for sacrifice and the higher echelons of power based their understanding of the natural world on it: sacrificing for rain, earthquakes, floods, famine. The majority of people sacrificed, the guide explained, were warriors that had lost a duel, which meant being bludgeoned to death on the big slab of stone in front of a frenzied Moche crowd jonesing for dismemberment...
Standing looking out over that ledge my mind snapped. I imagined a pack of hell dogs and a dozen or so Moche warriors in full battle regalia and war paint, chasing a dusty Indiana Jones out of the bowels of the pyramid after he evaded sacrifice by whipping the teeth and eyes of several men with the supersonic crack of his whip. Scampering frantically up the mosaic walls with one hand on his dusty hat the other ready for action, he did his best not to spill the contents of his satchel which was a small solid jade relic - believed by the locals to have something to do with something. Reaching the top of the mosaic wall Indy hastily spins, kicking the face of the closest perusing Moche warrior causing an avalanche of men tumbling down. Hearing the rumble of his getaway off in this distance he is relieved that Hancock wasn't passed out in some backwater Peruvian brothel and kept his solid word - although not like last time, he thought. Indy sees a priest standing on the ledge facing out towards the chanting people while screaming in dialect and holding the severed head of a sacrificed warrior whose beheaded-bound body lay in a pool of blood on the slab of stone behind. The Moche warriors again climbed the mosaic walls in disorganised pursuit, grunting oogah boogah. Indy’s glare focused as he realised the only way out is to take his chances by ploughing through that goddamn priest and leaping from the ledge. The rumble of his getaway became louder and louder and the priest stopped shouting and turned around, startled to see Indy. "Walla Walla," the priest commanded the pursing Moche warriors. Indy checked the buckle on the satchel and held his hat firm to his head and sprinted at the priest. "WALLA WALLA!" the priest screamed in horror but the sound was lost in the roar of Indy's getaway. Indy charged and rammed into the priest then leaped from the ledge with two arms out stretched, just able to grab the undercarriage of the swooping Ford Tri-Motor aeroplane flown by that semi-reliable drunk Hancock. Indy turned around just in time to see the priest fall the 50m to the ground. Slamming into the dusty dry desert, sending the decapitated skull skittling through the crowd. The Moche people beneath coward from the sight of the unusually large vulture but when the shadow had passed they returned back to the orgy of gore - dismembering the priest limb from limb. Hancock climbed steeply to escape the volley of spears, arrows and blow darts from the defeated Moche warriors... Indy didn't know it, but they were leaking a pink volatile fluid from a hole made by one of the arrows... There adventure was about to begin…
The guide led us away from the ledge to the backside of the pyramid where there was a half exposed VW-sized rock. She said that archaeologists thought that the only sacrifices had occurred on the large slab of stone up on top of the pyramid, until they discovered hundreds of dismembered bodies buried around the half exposed rock. The eerie aspect about the bones in this grave, she said, was that they all had etchings on the tops of the long bones - suggesting that the muscle had been stripped off the skeleton... Another perplexing finding was that all the bodies were buried in torrential rains. So, in dry or wet conditions these guys were totally insane...
Looking at the area surrounding the exposed rock and wading in its significance another terrible howl blasted from the pyramid behind us destroying the serenity and building the fear. We turned around to see hell dog standing dominant – perched high on the ledge, sampling the air but he wasn’t alone this time – hell dog’s mother was with him.
“Jesus!” I shouted. “Oh no,” the Kiwi girls whimpered – their ankles still a bloody mess from the last encounter. Hell dog growled and disappeared from the ledge. “Oh noou brew,” one of the Kiwis cried as they jumped behind me for some kind of protection. We had a fight on our hands, so I reached again for the rosary beads – fumbling its wretched knot in my pocket. Hell dog reached the bottom and was at full speed with his mum barking and growling behind. I corralled the four girls behind me and held my arm out at a 70 degree angle – the rosary beads dangling from my pink clenched fist and started screaming, “GIVE US DAILY BREAD, DAILY BREAD, DAILY BREAD, BREAD!” My right foot inside my heavy hiking boot was planted half a meter behind my centre of gravity – if the incantation failed I would let it loose on a kicking spree until nothing was left breathing. Hell dog was about to leap for my throat when suddenly the mum tackled him – both coming to a skidding halt a meter in front of me in a plume of dust. Hell dog wriggled and rapid fired squeals and cries while his mothers paw pinned him to the ground. She looked up at me with those dead pearl black eyes, realising what those beads meant but her young Turk still had to learn the ropes and that was not the time…
Our day was over but we still had to get back to Huanchaco, so we said out piece and left - keeping one eye on that goddamn hell dog. Waiting in the car park was a empty rocket headed for Trujillo, destined to drop us off on a roundabout where we could catch another rocket out to the beach. The rocket dropped us off on the hellish roundabout around dusk – peak hour downtown Trujillo is just as manic as any other place I had ever seen around the same time of day. We realised that we were on the wrong side of the roundabout and needed to get to the other side – seeing our rocket waiting on the other side added suspense as we ran across four lanes of homicidal maniacs. Our rocket started to pull away just as we reached it and a young guy hanging out the door saw our effort and gestured to the driver to slow down, which he did – we hoped on and payed the young man for our fair. He smiled at me and turned around and slapped the driver on the shoulder, showed him the money and dropped it in his tin. Five seconds later, a voice erupted from the back of the rocket – rapping in Spanish. I turned around to see a guy with speakers, standing on the spot waving his hands like he was declining something and yelling something about truth... Half way through, what presumably was the bridge of the song, the guy who took our fare also started to rap... And I mean like crazy – switching rapidly through sex, geo-politics, poverty and fashion. The rap stopped and the two guys collected tips. I gave the guy more money and he got off. Nice young man, I thought…
The next day we headed a further 200km north to Chiclayo: a moderately large city in the dustbowl of the Peruvian hinterland, significant for its proximity to Sipán. Sipán was the third and final destination of this archaeological fix and in many ways, was the summit of importance for us and the region because in 1987 in the area of Sipán a series of tombs called Huaca Rajada were found untouched by those thieves or those rat bastard Diegos…
Being the regional centre, Chiclayo revolved around everyday life – a working city, not really geared for tourism which maybe why people stopped what they were doing to watch my beard pass. Our hotel was ran by a nice couple who were 150 years old and the foyer smelling like a mixture between formaldehyde and bleach gave a clue to their longevity. They drew on a map where we were and hatched in red lines the areas to avoid – which turned out to be everywhere except a fine corridor from our front door to the city centre a block away. From the foyer I could see a business across the road that sold uniforms - claiming to be Chiclayo's only "seguro" or "reliable" military and police uniform store: no I.D. required! As we walked by the store on the way to the tour office, I inspected through the glass window, a very smart looking Air Marshals uniform: medals included; all for $20. I imagined buying and wearing one of those blue Peruvian Air Marshall uniforms and strutting, with total command, through the red-hatched bad lands to our tour office. If some naive young punk had a crack at us, I would simply push him aside with mighty force, point my finger at the clouds and yell, I COMMAND THE GODDAMN SKIES, WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU! Surely the young punk would know enough not to mess with an Air Marshall...
The next day we were off to see the Huaca Rajada tomb in Sipán: a 35km drive inland through menacing bus-sized pot holes and vibrant green farms. The van momentarily slowed for a crowd that had amassed on the side of the road - all inspecting the smouldering wreckage of what looked like to be a vintage plane that had ploughed into the ground at a shallow angle... After roughly 90 minutes we entered the village of Sipán, which was a small community built around the constant flow of tourists that came to see Huaca Rajada.
Immediately in unison the people in the bus gasped at the sight of the khaki-coloured Huaca Rajada rising tall above the bright green fields and trees like some kind of fictional ant mount. The site consisted of several tall mounds or mausoleums, all made from millions of stacked adobe bricks, which at one stage, formed a smooth exterior but the inevitable millennia of erosion had rutted and pitted the surfaces. The van stopped, by design, right next to a line of locals selling items relevant to the area. A young girl carrying a felt board, larger than her, displaying earrings was already leaning inside the car, waving the big felt board around making the earrings jingle with the motion. Her mood was spiteful when people either declined the proposal or ignored her completely.
The guide led us up the steep mound straight to the huge fenced-off burial site where they found Mr Sipán. The grave was as they had discovered it nearly 30 years ago but the precious contents had been moved to a museum near Chiclayo and had since replaced it with replica skeletons and treasures. The tomb was as deep as it was wide with the king, in full regalia, being the focal point. Lying on either side of him were the remains of two women and at his feet was the skeleton of a llama. Scattered all around the tomb were various items of value including hundreds of clay pots and the skeletons of his maids and hell dogs.
The most interesting aspect of this tomb was the footless skeleton sitting on a ledge close to the top, where the people would have closed the tomb. The guide explained that the kings of the day were materialistic-narcissists and even in death somewhat worried about their wealth, so they cut the feet of a warrior and buried him alive... so he couldn't run away...
"But apparently Mr Sipán was different," the guide said, while kneeling down next to the big tomb... "Born as twin, he and his Brother Fidel entered the world minutes apart yet one was born in sunshine and one in complete darkness... It is said that the sun drowned for a short time when Fidel was born casting the land in shadow; the worst of the worst type of omen. The two boys were inseparable growing up, not realising that one day one of them would be crowned King. Fidel became increasingly jealous of their fathers favouritism towards his brother- praising him at every opportunity and eventually crowning him king, endowing him with the protection of the green semptial stone; the fulcrum of all natural order - possessing untold power. The stone sat embossed in the centre of the giant gold crown perched on top of Mr Sipán's head which he guarded purposefully and used its power respectfully - providing steady rains and nourishing soils for the land and its people. Jealousy and hate for his brother filled Fidel's soul which led him to one night sneak into his brother’s room and maul him to death with a 30cm whale bone machete, stealing the semptial stone." The guide looked up and surveyed the arid hills and deserts off to the east and mentioned that since that day Peru has been virtually a desert and the legend says until the stone is returned to the crown, Peru will forever be doomed...
To contextualise the whole tour the van headed back to Lambayeque: a town close to Chiclayo where they had built the museum: Museo Tumbas Reales del Senior de Sipan, which guarded the treasures of the tombs. Being the pride of the region, the museum was built to impress: its sleek red surface leaping out of the ground at obtuse angles, imitating the original look of the pyramids and forming drama worthy of its significant contents.
Inside, gold could be seen illuminated in individual display cases showing hundreds of different shapes - from intricate gold welded hinges to large face shields. Some of the shields were smelted with copper and on one particular shield you could see the oxidised outline of someone's fingerprint adding a familiar human dimension. The dark exhibition funnelled visitors through a casino-like maze of treasures, eventually leading to the prized piece being Mr Sipán himself – displayed as he was buried, bones and all. Looking like he was borne from sunshine with all the gold ornaments laying flat on his bones, it was easy to see the void left by the stolen semptial stone in his crown...
Suddenly, a shattering eruption could be heard either in the roof or near the entrance causing the men to jerk and the women to scream. The guards touched their ears with incoming information and boomed off down the corridor screaming things like: tengo, beta and foxtrot. I felt a small tremor humming under my foot and I looked at the floor to see a crack slowly forming on the tile in front of me. The tremor grew to a quake, violently shaking the building, knocking over displays and ill-balanced Peruvians. Then suddenly the shacking stopped – everybody looked at each other with relief then… BOOOM! The floor exploded upwards sending shrapnel of concrete and tiles all over the room and rushing out of the crater were hundreds of Moche warriors all grunting! In an instant Charly had taken a few of them out but some of the Moche warriors were already gnawing on the lifeless corpses of their Peruvian victims. Hell had erupted in that room – blood strewn across confused faces, limbs being used as weapons and Charly hysterically laughing while piling a mound of dead warriors in the corner. The flood of warriors through the crater had thickened and all hope of surviving the nightmare had evaporated when symphonised horns and trumpets could be heard. “What the fuck is that music!” Charly screamed as she dumped another body on her mound. “I don’t know!” I screamed back and then a green light caught my eye high in the roof, I looked up to see Indy fighting his way across a gangplank hoisted above – the green light burning bright through his satchel bag. One by one he knocked the brutes out of his way but the flood of warriors was too much, so he grabbed his whip, cracked it and lassoed the light fixture that swung high above the room and then leapt. All the Moche warriors sprung in the air, swiping their claws at him but he was too swift. At the end of his swing, right above the King of Sipáns exhibition, he let go – falling vertically, crashing through the display glass landing right on top Mr Sipán bones. All the warriors panicked and rushed towards the display but it was too late. Indy looked up at the Moche warriors bearing down on him and screamed, “SEE YOU IN HELL!” as he slammed the semptial stone into its place in the gold crown sending a thunderous concussion outwards - knocking everyone on their arse. The Moche warriors eyes filled with fear as a bright green ball of energy glowed around the stone – getting louder and brighter. Without warning hundreds of yellow and blue lightning bolts zapped out of the energy ball, striking every single warrior in the forehead – momentarily causing them to jolt violently and catch fire before exploding into trillions of atoms… The room fell silent and shortly after the rustling of broken glass could be heard. I looked at the edge of the pit where Indy fell and I saw a bloody hand firmly grab the edge of the display – and pulling himself up was Indy. He paused on the ledge and gave a dreamy grin before fully escaping the pit. Standing up seeing all the devastation, he looked at me and said, “Hey kid, can you get that for me,” - pointing at my feet. I looked down as saw his brown fedora - sitting upside down in front of me. I knelt down, picked it up and gave it to him. Indy dusted and wiped of the small shards of glass and calmly put it back on his head and said, “Let's take a look outside.” We left the museum and felt the first sprinkles of rain…
Witnessing the magnificence he had unleashed, Indy lost his composure and broke down - falling to his knees and started to weep...
"I hate the things he makes me do," Indy sobbed.
"Jesus Indy, what things?" I asked.
"That thing in the Amazon with the aliens, he had no right, goddamn it!"
"I know Indy," I said while putting my hand on his shoulder, "I know."
Indy wiped the tears from his eyes and stood up - looking out over the greening desert. "This, this was beautiful. Thank you," he said with a quiver in his tone.
"No thank you, Sir," I replied as we embraced.
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