Caral-Supe

November 30th, 2011

The Supe valley lies inland, just a little south of Barranca, Peru. And nestled within is the Caral-Supe Archeological site, 5000 years old and one of six sites in the world where civilization rise naturally.

There are several large signs sitting just off the Pan American,

All of them point to the south, so if you are riding south (as I was) you see them in your mirror and get to turn around.

There are two ways to get to the site, you can ride into Caral, park at an empty visitor center, and walk a few kilometers, or you can take a dirt/gravel road that leads right to the locations. I probably would have been okay with the walk, but took the dirt/gravel road instead.

I didn’t seem to have taken many (any) pictures of the road, but this is off the gopro video. Not the greatest still…I blame the software.

And then there was something river crossing like

At which point I stopped for some lunch and didn’t turn the camera back on afterwards. It was mostly gravel anyway.

You aren’t allowed to just walk around the site, and tours are conducted in groups. Rumor has it that there are some English speaking guides, but that isn’t what I got. But I also had a Spain native along with the group who help with some translating, some of the signs were bi-lingual, and I got to go with a group of school kids.

Who naturally thought Blue was Awesome.

Our tour guide was a local professor, and I guess he knew is stuff. I don’t have anything to compare him too.

I can’t be completely certain, but I think Blue may have been distracting for the kids.

Most of the time was spend walking around the site, which is huge. The main pyramid is supposedly four football fields in size.

Most of the ruins have little signs nearby, where the tour stops and the guide says something. Some of the signs are bilingual, some not.

After about two hours the tour was over. The school kids all had a lunch with them, but I had eaten right before so contented myself with a snack and got back on the road.

I’m not completely sure how I managed it, but I went through Lima without any problems and time to spare, so I went a bit further south and stopped in a hostel on the beach.

Most of the little restaurants were closed, but I had already said I would be having dinner at the hostel anyway. So instead I just sat in the sand and watched the sun go down, thinking I must have done something good to deserve this.