Can You Say Chan Chan?

Peru is an archeological gold mine, best known as the home of the Incan Empire but also host to many other cultures, some of which existed thousands of years before the Inca. The whole country is scattered with the remains of cities and temples, many of which are still being discovered today.


Before ending our sun worship/stomach bug recovery at the beach and heading for the mountains, we spent a day exploring the ruined city of Chan Chan, the capital of the Chimu society. The Chimu rose to prominence around AD 850 and were eventually defeated by the Incas in AD 1471. The city itself was built circa AD 1300 and covered 28 sq km, the largest pre-Columbian city in the Americas and the largest adobe city in the world. Wind and rain have since destroyed most of the city’s structures while conquistadors and grave robbers have emptied it of gold and ceramics.



Chan Chan was originally divided into 9 major complexes, one of which (the Tschudi complex) has been reconstructed. Even ancient friezes depicting fish, nets, seabirds, and seals have been either restored or recreated. We caught a ride to where the Huanchaco-Trujillo road passes the ancient city and set off across the arid ground towards the complex. After purchasing our admission we were allowed to wander throughout the structure independently along a marked path.



There’s only one spot where the 10m-tall and 4m-thick walls part to allow entrance to the city. The city’s gate first brings visitors to the main ceremonial plaza. Walkways around the plaza lead to various rooms that comprised living quarters, offices, shops. At the far end of the complex is a giant well that provided water for the city, located across from the ceremonial burial ground for priests and leaders. We wandered back through the long dusty corridors and eventually made our way out into the deserted surrounding ruins.



We left the area trying to imagine what it would have looked like if the entire city were still alive and functioning, an adobe metropolis built out of the desert-like ground near the coast. It’s just one of the many spots in Peru where the remains of an ancient civilization exist, graveyards for empires that thrived for hundreds of years before meeting an unforeseen end.