Tombs and mummies and treasures of gold and silver...

It's not only the Lonely Planet who describes the Tombs of Sipan as 'maybe the the most important archaeological discovery in South America since Macchu Pichu'. We were intrigued, and set off further up the north coast to discover more...

To break up our week of rainy weather at the beach, Chris and I headed further north on a three hour bus ride towards Chiclayo - now home to the largest healer market in Peru. Chiclayo was actually founded by Spanish missionaries in the 16th century and has prospered ever since due to its situation at the hub of vital trade routes between the coast, highlands and deep jungle. But this wasn't the reason we'd come here. We were in search of tombs and mummies and treasures of gold and silver...

The Chiclayo Herbal Market - Where aisles and aisles of exciting and unusual items are sold and just about anything you could imagine a witch doctor would need. I was told by one guide that dead guinea pigs are even used as a kind of metal detector wand to scan your whole body. They are then dissected to investigate for signs of human sickness.

Chiclayo as a town seemed bustling and crowded and, dare I say it? Slightly 'dodgy' in a certain sense - it wasn't the most scenic of Peruvian towns we'd visited that's for sure. There was no-one in traditional dress and the sense of modernity was added to by the large number of chain stores, not least in the form of humongous fast-food restaurants and little mobile phone shops everywhere. This feeling of 'dodgy-ness' wasn't helped by our inability to find any accommodation within our budget that wasn't a gloomy cell in a seemingly dangerous area. In typical Steph-Chris style we, yet again, trundled round for the best part of two hours trying to find somewhere to stay. We finally settled on the most ridiculous place (easy to say in hindsight). We should have realised when we arrived, having walked up the marble stairs to a reception area that was gated off and having to rattle the gate for a good five minutes, shouting loud 'holas', before the man wandered nonchalantly downstairs saying he'd been fixing something and hadn't heard us. Luckily he had a lovely ensuite room with cable tv free - it hadn't been cleaned yet (it was already 6pm - goodness knows what he'd been playing at but we really should've known he'd be trouble) but he assured us that when we'd returned from dinner in an hour it would be clean and ready for us. We happily went off to one of the shiny, clean and modern food chains with a decent menu with the all important free wifi and a deal on Pisco Sours. We returned to the same restaurant twice during our stay in Chiclayo and every time, a Chiclayo gaucho (below) was in at the same time - we upset things one day by sitting in his regular spot, just to see what would happen, hehe. Of course, when we returned to the hotel at 10.30pm, the room still hadn't been cleaned but we weren't relishing the thought of wandering round dodgy Chiclayo at that time of night so had to stay put while the room was cleaned (after a lot of shouting and arguing IN SPANISH by Chris!)

The Chiclayo gaucho

Nearby to Chiclayo are the 26 crumbling pyramids of Tucume - this city was once the final capital of the Sican culture who moved their capital here in around 1050AD. We wandered around this dusty landscape with our guide, taking in what must have once been a bustling hype of activity. The views from the top of one of the adobe structures, Purgatory Hill (so called because the Spanish tried to convert local pagans to Christianity here by dressing as demons and throwing non-believers to their deaths!), were phenomenal and really gave you a good idea of how huge this city once was.

The Pyramids of Tucume

Chris: Mountains of Mud... Unlike the pyramids of Egypt, which were built as tombs, the mud-brick pyramids of northern Peru were more like a high-rise ceremonial complex. Built in stages, the pyramids grew as rooms, patios, and walkways were filled in and became part of the huge solid structure. Tombs have been found here but their main function would have been as ceremonial sites. Workers sealed the tombs with mud bricks and just kept on building on top of the past generation's structure - like cardboard boxes over one another.

After the impressive site at Tucume it was off to the incredible Tombs of Sipan. Only in 1987 when local archaeologist Dr Walter Ava realised treasure was being sold on the black market did he understand that an incredible burial site was being ransacked. Excavation began and the most impressive tomb since that of Egypt's Tutankhamun was discovered - the tomb of the 'Lord of Sipan'. To keep the locals happy - who would have otherwise earned a lot of money from selling looted stolen treasure - they were given jobs on the archaeology team as diggers. A great idea if you ask me.

Just like at Tucume, the pyramids here look like very normal mounds of earth - the winds and rains of centuries have eroded these impressive brick structures down to mere hills. Underneath the ground though and, no doubt, inside the remaining pyramid, the bricks remain in their original state. The most impressive thing however is not the bricks, but the fact that you can peer directly into the tombs left for the kings - archaeologists have worked on the tombs so that you see a complete reconstruction of how the tombs looked before they were closed up over 1500 years ago.

Peru really is a history lover's dream. Whether you're interested in the more famous Incan Empire of Cusco and around or the smaller but far more ancient empires from the North of Peru, a trip here is a must if you are any kind of history geek. You can get so close to the real life tombs - I doubt this is the case in Egypt!

Chris: Tumba del Senor Sipan, north near Lambayeque - considered to be the King Tut of the Americas.

Steph: In each tomb was usually found the lord or king himself surrounded by his wife and any mistresses plus a guard and even an advisor and most revered servants. There were also usually a llama and possibly a dog plus a huge amount of gold and jewels. When a king died, his servants had to be put to death at the same time (plus his wife and mistresses) in order to be buried along side him. Crazy.

The local workers would each make an individual pot or statue for their king

to take with him into the after-life

The kings were adorned in rich jewelry - for every gold object that the Lord of Sipan had (representing the sun), he had an identical silver one to represent the moon. Tides, and thus the moon, were very important to this culture whose main staple was fish. Museums hold the huge number of gold and silver jewels found in the tombs. Chris and I visited a number of museums during our stay on the north coast and were shocked by the immense value of the treasure in each.

Chris: From mummies we can see that ancient Peruvians had great teeth due to the seafood diet and natural flouride in coca.

In nearby Lambayeque the annual 'KING KONG' festival was occurring to celebrate the existence of this weird but wonderful cake of the same name.

Back in Huanchaco we had a final site we wanted to visit: the largest pre-Columbian city of the Americas and also the largest adobe city in the world, Chan Chan. Built around 1300AD by the Chimu people, there were once 60 000 people living here and when you realise how large this site - mostly yet to be excavated - actually is you can easily see how that is true. Chan Chan is just massive - it stretches across a whole highway. It's such a shame that so much of it remains untouched by archaeologists - there must be so much to still find and discover out there. The parts which have been excavated are impressive, especially the walls they built to represent fish nets. The Incas eventually conquered the city but the incredible wealth remained untouched until the Spaniards inevitably took it all away. Absolutely amazing, this place. Why oh why does Peru not get more international acclaim for all it's wonderful historic sites?!