Big old sand castles

Arriving in Trujillo (just on the edge of the desert) at 5.30am very tired but aware that every day counts and i am in a hurry to get to Lima (to meet Roo!) i decided that sleep was a luxury not for me and instead decided to spend the day touring the local ruins. i decided to first go to the nearby ancient pyramids- what an overstatement! well what i mean is, try to imagine what a 3000 year old sand castle looks like (sand isn't exactly a durable material, also bear in mind the spanish destroyed half of it during the conquest) what it resembles today is more like a pile of mud, undeterred i decided to enter the site and have a closer look- the first thing i noticed was a local dog, what is strange about peruvian dogs is that they are totally hairless! very odd indeed. I made the desicion that i didn't need a guide and could find my way around ok, also being just me a guide would have been too expensive. Once inside the ruins however, they were alot better than they looked on the outside, the inside walls were covered with coloured murals on many levels- in fact the site is still being excavated, the people that lived there (the Moche) built temples on top of old temples. I decided that maybe a guide would be useful after all and was contemplating what to do when just ahead of me i heard a tourguide that seemed to be speaking English (light bulb flash) if i could join that group it would be much cheaper for me. I approached the group and asked the couple that looked closest to my own age only to be told that i needed to speak to their father who had organised the trip, they welcomed me into their group no problems but it wasn't just a tour group it was a family holiday - day out that i was joining. The family consisted of mum(Peruvian born), dad(Hull born), 2 children, boyfriend of eldest daughter and granny (who, when shocked at the size of the ruins would exclaim "By Heck..."- this more than anything else was what i heard all morning), they were very friendly to me (except the teenagers who seemed fairly hostile to just about everything- how old am i!), the granny was asking me many questions, of which she seemed fairly happy with my answers until we got to "where did you go to uni?", her response to me was "why would anyone possibly go to Bradford!" (do you remember where she lives!). i decided i wouldn't continue with them to the next attraction.
The next attraction was the ruined city of Chan Chan, once again made out of sand i decided to go and have a look only cos i didn't want to waste the rest of the day. These ruins were much more impressive, Chan Chan was a walled city that was once completely self contained within 8-10 metre high walls. Once inside the walls there was lots of carved decoration, huge celebration halls, smaller rooms filled with idols and even a well- which is now a rather big lake complete with ducks and reeds (very pretty and peaceful, i seemed to be the only other tourist). After Chan Chan i walked the 2km back to the main road through the desert terrain, this too is very surreal but beautiful in an errie way, and then on to the nearby beach village of Huanchaco. I had lunch followed by a little nap on the beach (i guess sleep is a nessecity after all) and then watched the sun set as the local fishermen, in their strange boats, set out to catch that evenings' tea. and home for an early night.