Chiclayo

By Stan Kimer

Although Chiclayo is Peru’s fourth largest city and is home to interesting ruins and impressive museums, it receives few tourists. The area was once inhabited by the ancient Moche and Sipán civilizations which adorned their leaders with gold that rivals that found in King Tut’s tomb.

One route from Chiclayo can start with a visit to the Sipán and Túcume ruins of the Moche and Lambayeque civilizations, where several great gold artifacts have been uncovered over the past few decades. Near Chiclayo are the three museums of Sicán-Ferreñafe, Bruning Museum, and Tumbas Reales de Sipán; depicting the lives of local cultures that lived 1,000 to 2,000 years ago, and displaying some spectacular, priceless gold pieces. The most modern of the three museums, Tumbas Reales de Sipán, closes the museum tour with a dramatic room of life-size figures that move and rattle instruments to ancient Indian music.

There are several other charming sites close to Chiclayo. One special trip would be heading to the beach of Pimento around noon, where just as in ancient times, fishermen paddle themselves out into the wild ocean waves in small, single-person reed canoes for fish and crabs. Around noon each day, dozens of these fishermen return to the beach in the tiny crafts rocked wildly by the waves. There is a tingling anticipation and excitement along the beach as each fisherman arrives on shore and his family and friends him help pull his heavy boat ashore and then examine the catch for the day. As you participate in this daily ritual, you will magically feel transported back to a simpler time of 1,000 years ago when people subsisted off the sea.

Less than half an hour north of Chiclayo is the small charming colonial town of Lambayeque. It contains a grand, yellow cathedral and across from it is Casa Montjoy, which claims Peru’s longest balcony. Travelers around the Chiclayo area can experience all these historical treasures, sights, and sounds without seeing another single tourist!

In lieu of staying at a modern hotel, one can instead stay with a local woman who built two small apartments on the second floor of her home and now offers them to tourists and visitors. Her home is located in an average, middle class neighborhood about half a mile from the center of Chiclayo, making it very easy to walk to downtown with its gorgeous town square and magnificent gold filled cathedral. Locals frequently go to a side chapel in the cathedral and pray reverently before a huge, sparkling, gold religious ornament upon which sits a huge white holy communion wafer.