Trujillo and the ruins

I spent two nights in the city of Trujillo after a lengthy bus ride from Guayaquil in Ecuador. The northern coast of Peru is a flat desert with a few rocky hills rising out of the sand, but there are some excellent ruins right outside of town and the city has a nice colonial core. The central plaza is surrounded by stucco buildings painted the traditional colors of brick red, mustard yellow, and vivid blue, which you can see in the following pictures.

I visited several ruins that are in the area. The first were the "Temples of the sun and moon," which is actually a misnomer. The first archaeologists to work on the structures attributed an Incan religion to them, but in fact they pre-exist the Inca. The smaller of the two buildings, or the "temple of the moon," has been excavated and the colors are remarkably well preserved because the people built one temple on top of the other, filling in the rooms of the lower levels with bricks before building a larger, taller one over it. The frescoes were protected from the elements because of this and the intact colors are quite a rarity among ruins.

The "temple of the sun." It hasn't been excavated due to lack of funds.
The remains of a city are visible on the left side. 

The second ruin of Chan Chan was an other worldly experience. Massive stucco walls surrounding immense courtyards and narrow hallways, and everything you see is the color of sand. It felt like I was in Egypt rather than Peru. The Chimu who built it were another pre-Inca culture, and the complex that I toured was one of thirteen palaces, and the third largest, if I remember right.

Those are squirrels running along the base of the wall, and the lines above represent waves.

The diamond shapes represent fishing nets.

Photographers: you need to do a fashion shoot here.
Your model should wear a turquoise dress.

They dug wells within each of the palace complexes.
The green island in the ocean of sand heightens the other-worldliness.