Ruined

Satori, Peru, ruins — Stephen on 5 Octubre 2008 @ 10:09 — 0 comments

Maybe it was all the dust emanating from the northern Peruvian desert. Or the physical ugliness of the city of Chiclayo. Or the maddening lack of detail at some of the museums. Or just the viewing of one too many decapitated heads, mummified remains, Moche vessels, or gold head dresses. Whatever the cause, somewhere between the fabulous remains and ruins of Sipan and Sican, I began to suffer archeological overload.

I realize that It is time to change my themes and country. Which falls at a really good time, as I happen to have a plane ticket to Buenos Aires leaving on Tuesday.

Toniná

Satori, ruins — Stephen on 9 Marzo 2008 @ 19:38 — 0 comments

In between making each other nervous as hell with our respective driving styles, Arnaud and I stopped at a site known as Toniná.  The ruins here are quite amazing, predating those at Palenque by a few hundred years and only fairly recently investigated by archaeologists. Because they are fairly newly studied, there are far fewer visitors to the site and one has the sense of taking part in the discovery of the ruins.  There are also far fewer barriers to climbing all over the ruins, which is probably really bad for them but makes for great fun. We felt like we were re-enacting our own version of Raiders of the Lost Arc, climbing in and out of tight places, tunnels, up along parapets, pyramids and so on.

From Tonina and Agua Azul