Rest Day - Huanchaco

With all the obligatory chores having been taken care of, I decided, along with Carmen, Jules and Elizabeth (the lass from Sydney who'd been kind enough as to bring my camera battery charger with her) to visit the archaeological site of Chan Chan, which was, the capital city of the Chimu Kingdom.

It's believed to have been built in around 850 AD ultimately housing some 40,000 to 60,000 residents making it the largest man made structure in the Americas at the time!

The Chimu Kingdom thrived because of their geographical location and their agricultural skills which enabled them to build an extensive irrigation system using canals, using rain run off from the Andes and their close proximity to the Pacific Ocean. They also flourished in later times as a result of their successful military campaigns and policy of extracting tributes from defeated parties until they were conquered by the Inca in around 1470 AD.

Chan Chan's days of glory came to an end around 1470, when the Inca conquered the city and broke up the Chimú Empire, with the Incan rulers controlling precious goods production (so as to limit the ability of the Chimu to fund a rebellion) by forcibly relocating many of Chan Chan's craftsmen to their own capital, Cusco, 600 miles to the southeast. The Chimu thus became no more than a vassal state in the vast Inca Empire.

By the time Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro arrived around 1532, the city had been largely abandoned, though reports from the expedition described walls and other architectural features adorned with precious metals, including one doorway allegedly covered in silver, which may well have been worth more than $2 million in today's money.