Museum Hopper

my last, but definitely not least post from my peruvian museum hopping!  i am going to combine the huaca de la luna y del sol and the museo huacas de moche for the blog post since they are affiliated and very much interlinked.  this is where we had our last bit of peruvian sightseeing up in trujillo.   stephen, my sister's new brother-in-law, highly recommended visiting the museum and the huaca.   the museum reminded me a lot of the museo larco , but this one was only focused on the moche people , which inhabited trujillo.  the museum had all the spanish descriptions translated to english, which was great.  the information was very engaging.  we also enjoyed not being reliant on a guide and could move around the museum at our own pace.  the moche people were one of the most sophisticated civilizations for the time period with sophisticated rituals, art and engineering.   Here is some of their pottery: once we wrap...

the day after visiting el museo larco , we as a large group went to huaca pucllana .  this is a large pyramid in the middle of lima!  here is an arial view of the huaca .  restoration and preservation of this huaca began in the early 1990s if my memory proves correct.  up until then, it had been used as a soccer field, motorcycle track and just a general gathering place! the huaca was used as a ceremonial and city center for the lima people who were living in lima (coincidentally) between 200 and 700 AD.   we had a guided tour for the huaca with a few other groups.  the tour guide was a little more robotic in her delivery and also was not as able to answer our questions than our guide at the museo larco.  that being said, her english was still waaay better than my spanish!  they also had llamas and alpacas on site.  here is a picture of an alpaca from another place we went: we found out more about the limas.  this nicel...

the first place we went to when we arrived in lima, peru was the museo larco .  my family, boyfriend, grandfather and aunt were all down in peru for my middle sister's wedding.  it was quite the trip with a beautiful wedding, but it also let me see some new museums!  always a big plus when i travel!  the museo larco was a great place for us to start.  it has a great overview of pre-columbian art work, textiles and ceramics.  most (if not all) of the pieces were purchased and found by a single family who had decided to create the museum to preserve the pieces.  the museum flows through time and seemed easy to follow.  my sister had arranged a guide for us since most of the explanations were spanish.  our guide seemed very well knowledgeable and spoke much better english than i speak spanish!  we were a group of about 20 people and she handled all of our questions and inquiries with grace.  it can be hard to keep a large group like...