Batán Grande – Bosque de Pomac

This incredible place is as interesting as it is beautiful. Baked in hot sun, cut in half by a river that floods the area in the rainy season and dotted with ancient pyramids, this dry forest of algarrobo trees on the old grounds of the Batán Grande suger-cane hacienda was the highlight of my time in Lambayeque.

December 29, 2007 | Archaeology, Lambayeque & Chiclayo Guide, Nature

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Museo Nacional Sicán

The museum gets a special mention, not only because like all museums in northern Peru it shames the rest of the country, but also it allowed you to take photos of the artefacts unlike the Sipán museum, also unbelievably excellent.

The Sicán of course, are the pyramid builders who left us Batán Grande and Túcume. This museum exists to display the most important finds of the tonnes uncovered.

December 28, 2007 | Lambayeque & Chiclayo Guide

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The Sicán

Not to be confused with the similarly named archaeological site of Sipán, the Sicán were an ancient civilisation that developed in northern Peru between 800 and 1300 AD. Also known as the Lambayeque culture, they were a people of metal workers and pyramid builders descended from the Moche, with trade connections and influence from peoples in the nearby mountains, rainforest and regions such as modern day Ecuador. Their trade system also gave them access to feathers from the Amazon to the east and lapis lazuli from Chile, far to the south.

December 27, 2007 | Archaeology, Culture & History, Lambayeque & Chiclayo Guide

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Cumbia, Musica Chicha and Grupo 5

Cumbia is a type of music that originated in Colombia as folk music and has since spread across Latin America becoming hugely popular. You’ll find it slightly different in each country, listened to by different sections of the population. Readers from the United States might be familiar with famous Cumbia singers Selena and The Kumbia Kings.

December 26, 2007 | Culture & History

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Pimentel

A ten minute bus ride from Chiclayo, at about 11km, is the most popular beach in Lambayeque where visitors can enjoy a good climate most of the year. A fishing town part of the year in which locals still uses the millennia-old Caballitos de Totora, it becomes a crowded get-away spot in the warmer months.

December 26, 2007 | Lambayeque & Chiclayo Guide

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Algarrobina

Algarrobo is the Spanish name for the Carob tree, a tree of Mediterranean origin that produces, in Spanish, the Algarroba fruit from which algarrobina can be produced. This tree grows up to 10 meters tall and can eventually grow huge branches. It survives well in dry climates allowing it to do well on the Peruvian coast.

December 26, 2007 | Peruvian Food

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The Tumi

The Tumi is a ceremonial knife used by ancient Peruvian cultures as a means to perform sacrifices. It consists of two parts, a semi-circular blade and a handle often representing the northern Peruvian God Naymlap. The ceremonial knife is usually made from solid gold, though sometimes bronze or copper, these metals representing the sun, from which Andean cultures believed all human life descended.

December 26, 2007 | Culture & History

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Noche Buena and The Peruvian Christmas

Those of us from the Northern Hemisphere probably associate Christmas with pine trees, mistletoe and, oh yeah, cold weather. However, for those countries located below the equator, the holiday occurs right at the start of the summer season. Peru is one of the countries that have the luck to be able to celebrate this holiday in mild temperatures. The differences don’t stop there as much of the way in which Peruvians celebrate Christmas is unique, especially when it comes to what foods they eat.

December 25, 2007 | Culture & History, Opinion

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Hans Heinrich Brüning

Hans Heinrich Brüning Brookstedt lives on through his museum in the town of Lambayeque in northern Peru. This Peruvian archaeologist of German origin, born in 1848, travelled to Peru in in 1875 to find work on the Pátamo estate.

December 21, 2007 | Lambayeque & Chiclayo Guide, Opinion

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Señor de Sipán

Peruvian archaeologist Walter Alva made world news in 1987 when he announced the greatest archaeological find since Tutankhamen in Egypt. When the grave of this Moche ruler was discovered, the archaeological community was amazed to find a burial so intact and yet more amazed at the unbelievable quantity of gold that accompanied this man, the Lord of Sipán.

December 20, 2007 | Archaeology, Lambayeque & Chiclayo Guide

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Lambayeque

The town of Lambayeque is the old Spanish colonial city founded in the 1500s that was the centre of power in the region of the same name. It stayed a relatively small town until 1720, when the rich families of the town of Zaña relocated here after Zaña was destroyed in a flash flood.

December 19, 2007 | Lambayeque & Chiclayo Guide

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Chiclayo

Chiclayo is a huge disorganised commercial city that sits on the Panamericana highway. It has a population of over 650,000 in a green (by Peruvian coastal standards) agricultural area with easy access to the mountains. The name of the city probably comes from the Mochic language; Chiclayoc meaning “hanging greenery”.

December 18, 2007 | Lambayeque & Chiclayo Guide

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