Viaje a Caral

This post will be few of words, because I find the pictures more interesting. And maybe I'm a bit lazy, but I feel like I should post something. That's possible too.
This past Saturday we left Lima for the first time. We were off to Caral, the oldest site with evidence of human civilization in the America's. "The Sacred City of Caral, was inhabited between 2600 and 2000 BC, and is a civilization that formed in the age before pottery. So pretty old. It was great to get out of the smog and pollution of Lima and start to actually see the mountains, and start to see more of the Peru than just the capital. We spent a few hours walking around the site, and it was really cool to see the contrast between the desert of the city ruins, and the lush farmland that surrounded the river nearby. It is believed that that river is the reason for the existence of Caral. While many early civilizations formed to help protect inhabitants from enemy clans/tribes, archeologists and historians believe that Caral was formed as a trading city. They discovered evidence of cotton seeds (and lots of them) in the valley, as well as the fact that despite living about 20 miles from the ocean, a large part of the diet of the people living in Caral was fish. Here's a link to the wikipedia site if you want to learn more about Caral: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caral

Now, onto some pictures!

Our first view of the river after getting off the bus.

Caral is made up of 19 pyramids spread out over a 35 mile area of the valley. 

 This clearly shows the contrast between the desert area of the pyramids and the green farmland by the river.

This is probably my favorite picture from the day. It was so beautiful being surrounded by these mountains!

Comments:

Mom and Fay: Yep! Well, it is a kind of passion fruit. There are actually two different types here. That one's called a granadilla, and is very sweet. The other (which I will talk about in my fruit blog) is more tart. Or so I'm told. They don't really eat it plain here much, but I'm going to try it soon, in the interest of science.

Dan: Great to hear from you! I'm glad Alisa's thinking about learning Spanish. It's a great language (and quite useful, I must say). Hope all is well!

And yes, I still plan on writing a blog about volunteering and one about fruit. I just need more substance for both of them in order to do them justice.

Until next time!