Piedras Importantes y Viejas

This weekend started early when we had to catch the bus at 6:30am on Saturday to Caral. We had a guide for the ride and she gave us a lot of of interesting information about the ruins we were going to see on Saturday. Caral had been built over 5000 thousand years around around the year 3000 B.C. Also because they were not able to find any weapons of war anywhere near the site they know that it was a sacred place where many of the smaller tribes and towns around would come to worship. When we arrived at the site we had to walk about ten minutes just to get to the start of the tour because Caral is situated north of Lima in the middle of mountains. The view was amazing but I could understand why they didn't find Caral until 1994 now.

  When we began our tour we saw many archaeological tools as they we still working on the site. They had blue flags that would wave to scare the birds and plastic tarps over parts of the ruins to help protect the stone from the elements. Also we got to see the two pyramids (Major and Minor) which served different purposes during there time. There was also a small area believed to be built by the Chancay civilization later on in time when the came to use the fruitful valley that lay just below Caral. The site was beautiful and hot and it was hard to believe that over 5000 years ago people lived there and that this was the oldest civilization in the Americas and yet still looked so organized. After Caral we headed back to Lima but stopped for lunch at Hotel Kajaca where I tried duck for the first time because the region is well known for it. It was very good but tasted a little bit like dry chicken still it was really good. Later that night back in Lima our Professor took us to La Pena, a club in Barraranco featuring traditional Peruvian dance shows. It was a lot of fun especially since some of our group was pulled up on stage and had to dance in front of everyone to show off the US. It was a great time with great music and a lot of fun people.
On Sunday I took the day to do some things in Lima that I hadn't yet had the time to do. I went surfing in the Pacific for the first time and was able to stand up for at least 2 runs which was awesome. It was a lot more work than I thought to get out to the waves though. Later that day though a group of six of us went paragliding. So basically we got strapped in with an instructor and his parachute and then ran off a cliff flying high into the air. The experience was magical. We went flying above the Marriott hotel one of the biggest buildings in Lima and from there you could see the whole city. It's amazing how big it is when you can see it up there. I was sad when we had to come back down though.