Few travellers get to appreciate the Northern Coast of Peru because most choose to visit the Inca sites in the south. The North Coast is home to huge and awe-inspiring pre-Inca sites; vast adobe cities and towering pyramids of the Chimu and Moche cultures.

The area is part of the great South American coastal desert and Lima's coastal fog gives way to increasingly longer months of sunshine.

The coastal city of Trujillo is Peru's third largest. Founded in 1535 by Pizarro it is a colonial city retaining much of its traditional flavour.  

After an uneventful 50 minute flight from Lima we checked into our hotel, the Libertador. This is a beautiful old building s situated  right on the Plaza de Armas.

Trujillo is the home of the folkloric dance - the Marinera Norte. This elegant dance involves the romantic waving of handkerchiefs and intertwining of the dancers.
 

Walk around the City

Trujillos very spacious and attractive main square has an impressive central statue and is fronted by the cathedral. Elegant colonial mansions surround the Plaza painted attractive shades of blue, red and yellow.

A walk was taken around the numerous mansions and churches most of which are near the Plaza de Armas.

The single feature that makes Trujillo's colonial centre especially distinctive is the beautiful wrought iron grillwork fronting almost all the colonial buildings in the city. This combined with the buildings pastel shades results in the distinctive Trujillo ambience distinctive from Peru's other colonial cities.
 

Chan Chan

Chan Chan, the huge ruined capital of the Chimu Empire, was built around AD 1300 and covers an area of about 28 sq kilometres. It is the largest pre-Columbian city in the Americas and the largest adobe city in the world. At the height of the Chimu Empire it housed an estimated 60000 inhabitants and contained a vast wealth of gold, silver and ceramics. After Chan Chans conquest by the Incas, the wealth remained more or less undisturbed since the Incas were concerned with expanding their imperial control and not in amassing treasure. As soon as the Spaniards arrived, however, the looting began and within a few decades there was little left of the treasures of Chan Chan. Chan Chan must have been a dazzling site at one time - today only the mud walls and a small amount of moulded decorations remains.

The Chimu capital consisted of nine major sub-cities each built by a succeeding ruler. Each contains a royal  burial mound where the ruler was buried with vast quantities of funeral offerings including dozens of sacrificed young women and chambers full of ceramics, weaving and jewellery.

Our tour of the site took us to the Tschudi Complex. Entry is through a 4m thick defensive wall which leads to the largely restored Ceromonial Courtyard. The walls are decorated with geometric designs and animals such as sea otters. Other walls showed further adobe friezes showing waves of fish rippling along the entire length of wall above a line of pelicans.

A large proportion of the remaining site is decorated with square and diamond shape designs representing what is thought to be the fishing nets of the fishermen. The final area visited is the Assembly Room. This has 24 seats set into niches in the wall and acoustic properties such that speakers sitting in any one niche can be clearly heard all over the room.    
 

Huaca del Sol and de la Luna

The temples of the Sun and Moon are over 700 years older than Chan Chan and are attributed to the Moche period.

The Huaca del Sol is the largest single pre-Columbian structure in Peru. The structure was made with an estimated 140 million adobe bricks. This temple is presently not open to visits from the public.

The smaller Huaca de la Luna is about 500m away across open desert. The site is undergoing ongoing archaeological research to explain the role of the temple. The structure is riddled with rooms that contain beautiful polychrome freezes for which the Moche were famous.
 

Huanchaco
 

The fishing and beach resort of Huanchaco is about 12km away from Trujillo and still retains a low key fishing-village ambience. Its a good surf spot and home of the totora reed boats. These high ended cigar shaped boats are called caballitos and are similar to the boats depicted on 2500 year old ceramics. The fishermen paddle these boats beyond the breakers to fish then surf back to the beach with their catch.

We spend an enjoyable afternoon and evening people and surfer watching while sampling the wonderful seafood available in the local restaurants.
 

Don Porfirio is in Barranco, the artesan district of Lima. The term "peña" has been misapplied to venues staging variety shows. Real peñas are clubs of aficionado members (referred to as being "family", because many members are actually related - as they were in the 'callejones' of central Lima where peñas originated) pay a subscription and who participate in and share knowledge about Peru's wonderful coastal musical traditions. Don Porfirio is one of a small handful of real family peñas where you can hear, and participate in, these traditions. It is managed by the Vásquez family, a celebrated family of black musicians who have been prolific over three generations in preserving and practising many of Peru's coastal musical traditions.

At the pena we saw excellent musicians such as Jajaja and Carmen Flores. We also see a Lima variation of the 'zapateo', a form of tap-dance and coplas de marinera limeña. Zapateo dancing is one of the styles of dancing associated with criollo music. With both Peruvian and African influences this style of tap dancing is really incredible to watch. In Peru there are yearly zapateo festivals and contests.

Click to hear music from the night

The  Casa Hacienda Moreyra is an historic hacienda-style colonial house that has stood in what is now the heart of San Isidro, Lima’s most elegant district, since it was constructed in the 1700s.

The Casa Hacienda's early owners were all members of Lima’s aristocracy. Due to its proximity to the olive groves, upon its completion, the house was initially called the Casa Hacienda El Olivar. The Count of San Isidro acquired the house in 1777. In 1853, the property passed into the hands of Gregorio Paz Soldán, and finally to its current owners, the Moreyra and Paz Soldán families.

The Casa Hacienda Moreyra has been declared a Historic Monument. Despite earthquakes, restorations, and structural changes, the home has made it into the 21st century relatively intact and true to its original character.

In construction from the 1700s through the early 1800s, it has a variety of architectural elements. There are baroque ornamental features from the Colonial period such as the chapel façade, the carefully detailed window mouldings, the elegant carved doors, and the semi-circular archways. There are later neo-Classical touches added to the main building after Peruvian Independence in 1821, and known as Republican style.


There are five distinct dining areas. The more casual outdoor walkway where you dine alfresco, the inviting yellow room, and the very elegant blue and red rooms. While dining, a pianist plays Peruvian waltzes, jazz, and classical pieces on an antique piano.