In an effort to take us directly to the ruins and avoid a half mile walk, the taxista made a short cut that would lead us through a very rocky stream. As a precaution, David and I dismounted before our driver tried the stream bed. A passing campesina woman told the driver to gun the engine as he entered the stream. This turned out to be a major mistake as the front wheeled Toyota dug itself deeply into the bed of slippery, round stone river bed.
We saw visions of our Caral expedition disappear before our eyes but fortunately three locals came to our rescue and help push us out so we went back to the long way.
Caral was well worth the effort. Carbon 14 dating gives the site an age of 5000 years, the oldest city in the America. The site itself consists of 7 piramids built around a great plaza. The site is located above the Supe River in an excedingly dry and dusty ridge. Caral is one of 21 similar and contemporary sites built along this and nearby rivers. While they didn´t have metal nor ceramic, the inhabitants developed a highly structured society which seems to have been geneses of most or all of the subsequent Andean cultures.
After visiting Caral, we drove up the coast north to the huge Chimu fort in Paramonga. This was the furthest south that the Chimu expansion.
And on the way back to the hotel, we stopped off at a museum where Simon Bolivar had lived for a few months as he planned his attack on the Spanish in the highlands.
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