Mud glorious mud

Tuesday May 27th

Today we visited Chan Chan and the Temple of the Moon (the Temple of the Sun was closed for repairs). These are large pre-Inca buildings made entirely out of mud. Chan Chan is a big city with temples, streets and houses all made from mud. The Temple of the Moon is more of a pyramid like structure made out of mud bricks.

They were pretty cool, but not all that I had hoped for. The BBC program I had seen Chan Chan on must have had a lot more access to the site than we did. We only saw a small part, and weren't really there for that long, but it was still good.

The Temple of the Moon was better though. This may partially have been because when we got there they were filming some sort of ad for it (or the beer that sponsors the site, we weren't sure). We thought we mightn't be able to get to see it because of the film crew, but instead they actually wanted us to be in the ad, they needed a group of tourists to stand and look interested in what the guide was saying. To sweeten the deal we got a free bottle of water before shooting, and a free bottle of beer afterwards. So maybe thats why it was better.

Anyway after all that we got back to our beach side resort for a late lunch, and then we spent the rest of the day lazing by the pool, and playing pool (and drinking more beer).