More Mochi. Way more Mochi. Too much Mochi.

Chiclayo is the biggest city in Northern Peru, with some 730.000 inhabitants. But it is not a nice city. It’s big, noisy, grey. Somehow boring. After we had booked a tour to see the three most important sights in and around town, we asked the travel agent what to do in the remaining three hours, until the tour would start. He couldn’t really tell us much, some kind of small garden/park was the only sight he could think of.

Lucky enough that I had forgotten my camera in the bus, so at least we had something to do trying to get it back. A helpful lady at the ticket office of the bus company called the bus, some service staff there found it, and it would be send back on the next bus. So they said.

We had breakfast, visited the local market and read in the newspaper that Bayern Munich had kicked Real Madrid’s ass 2:1 in the first game of the Champions League semi-final. Good job. :) As our two internet-free weeks had not passed yet, we were absolutely out of date regarding world news. But it’s a great feeling to not having to care about internet etc., just fully concentrate on the journey. Maybe one should switch of the internet in general every now and then.

The tour was pretty interesting: We started off at the pyramids in Túcume, the burial site of the former ruler of the Mochi, el señor de Sipan. And his daddy, the old señor de Sipan.

The sad thing is, the Mochi, unlike the Egyptians or the Inca, built their pyramids with clay, as it was the easiest accessible material nearby. And this clay has taken a lot of damage from the rain over the centuries. So the pyramids aren’t anymore what they must have been once upon a time. But hey, with a little imagination they a still quite stunning.

Next stop: The museum of Sipan in Lambayeque. In this three-story high building one gets all the background information about the excavation of the pyramids. Furthermore, all the findings are exhibited, including a lot of gold, weapons, jewelry and the bones of the old señor and his son. And, of course, one can buy hundreds of replicas of those findings in the on-site museum shop.

The restaurant the tour guide had chosen for lunch was way above our price expectations, so Julez and I sneaked of to eat for half of what a menu would have cost at the other place. Together. Plus we could watch the first half an hour of Chelsea vs. Barcelona, an intense and interesting match – unfortunately we left only minutes before Didier Drogba would score the decisive goal…

Another excavation site had to be visited. Not as big, not as thrilling as the first one. And hence maybe a bit redundant, as the eyelids and legs got heavier and the head was just too pumped with information to process any more. After some 20 minutes or so the tour was over, and we had a bumpy ride back home coming up – including a beautiful sunset.

After those hammock-nights for the last two weeks, Julez and I opted for a two-star hotel this night. Including Wi-Fi. Internet diet was over. LAN party was on. *g*