Easter Week - Trip to Pachacamac and Magic Waters

16 April 2017

We returned to Lima after a few weeks in the jungle and high in the Andes Mountains working on our wheelchair project. Easter Week (Semana Santa) is huge throughout Peru with religious events, fairs, and celebrations. Thursday and Friday were national holidays, and our offices were closed so we had a few days off to explore.

Humanitarian Work

Our work plate is getting more and more full. In addition to the vision project in Tarapoto (cataract surgeries, 2,000 glasses for impoverished children, donation of ophthalmology surgical equipment, etc.), we also have pending projects in Cerro de Pasco and Arequipa to donate ultrasound equipment to remote medical clinics.

Damage from the devastating floods this year will require years to repair.  The rains, which dumped 10 times normal precipitation in some areas, wiped out roads and submerged dozens of towns all over the country. Our office has been working overtime keeping up with the emergencies, both here and in Colombia.

News shot from Huachipa, east of Lima. Damages from the massive Peruvian floods will take years to repair.

Massive appeals have come into the church to help out with the recovery. One appeal is for help to replace the complete loss of school furniture and desks in devastated cities up north like in Piura. Responding to these requests will be a major undertaking for us in the coming weeks.

Trip to Pachacamac

Due to the Easter celebration, our offices were closed two days this week, which gave us a chance to visit Pachacamac, a massive pre-Columbian temple complex on the Pacific Ocean about an hour south of here.

Everyone knows of Machu Picchu, but few people outside Peru realize the many civilizations besides the Incas that have existed in Peru. Pachacamac was a central temple complex used for over a thousand years as a center of worship by four civilizations, including the Inca.

Pachacamac - Massive complex with more that 15 temple pyramids

The highest point in Pachacamac, the Temple of the Sun, faces the Pacific Ocean. What a view!

The Pachacamac temple complex, about the size of 50 football fields, is sliced through the center by a main north-south corridor.

Although most of the pyramids are made of adobe bricks, many stones were brought in from distant locations in the Andes Mountains. Worshipers came from locations as far away as present-day Ecuador and Chile.

Worshipers entered the Pachacamac complex along this road only after fasting and cleansing for 28 days

Ramped temple entries lead to the top of these adobe pyramids. This is one of about 15 temple pyramids that were built  over a thousand-year period. 

An estimated 50,000 to 80,000 graves are on site at Pachacamac, many of which were looted by locals over the past five centuries to recover gold and silver. However, more graves are discovered as excavation continues, and archaeologists continue to recover more artifacts and treasures. Many of these were on display in the Visitor Center.

Golden image recovered from one of the excavated graves at Pachacamac.

Part of the ceramic treasures unearthed, many of which were found in graves.

Close up of a ceramic image from Pachacamac.

Silver spoons that nobles used for preparing coca leaves, which they made into a tea and drank in times past instead of Red Bull and other high-energy drinks!

Wooden image of Pachacamac recovered in 1939. This image was considered so sacred that no one was allowed to look at it except the high priest.

The temples at Pachacamac are massive structures, built by hand from individual adobe bricks. Note the comparitive size of the people walking up to the Temple of the Sun. Thousands of graves are in the foreground under layers of sand. The dead are buried vertically rather than horizontally.

Entry into the Temple of the Sun

The adobe walls were originally plastered and then painted either red or yellow.  This must have made the site very impressive to pilgrims coming from distant lands. While most of the plaster and paint have dissolved with time, a few spots have remained intact as shown here. Archaeologists now cover up buildings with sand after completing an excavation in order to preserve these fragile buildings. 

Our guide, along with other senior missionaries [the Joneses (left), the Asays (middle), and Sandy] looking at the scale model of this massive site in the Visitor Center. 

The final stop - Marshall and Sandy at the Temple of the Moon

Temple of the Moon is the most  restored of all the temples at Pachacamac. It was reserved for women who were sacrificed at this site. This barbaric practice, abhorrent in our day, was apparently viewed as an honor in past ages (at least according to the records kept by the Spanish chroniclers who interviewed the native priests at the time of the conquest).

Pachacamac is on the tentative list for inclusion as a UNESCO World Heritage Site (along with Machu Picchu and several other sites in Peru).

Pachacamac was amazing place, although we were glad we came in the early autumn (in the Southern Hemisphere) rather than in the middle of the blazing summer. 

Circuito Magico (Magic Waters)

Saturday night (part of our normal preparation day) we went to the Parque de la Reserva to visit the Magic Waters. About a dozen exquisite fountains fill this park, many of which you can walk through or run through. The place comes alive after dark when lights transform this into a magical place of mystical colors and water.

Crowds fill the park after sunset to watch the show. This is one of about a dozen fountains located throughout the park.

Entering the tunnel of water and light - an amazing experience at night. I was a little drippy wet by the time I exited.

Many fountains let you experience the water and light first-hand. You need to change your clothes after experiencing this fountain!

For this fountain, try to find a safe spot before hand and then . . .

. . . they turn on the water and you are bound to get soaked. Listening to the screams was half the fun of this park.

Magic Waters was an appropriate name for this park, especially after dark when the lights turned this into a mystical spot of wonder and color. (And, it only cost $1.30 to get in - what a bargain!)

More Peruvian Food

We thought we would suffer here in Peru from the lack of Mexican food. But the local cuisine continues to surprise us, especially when it comes to spicy and sweet treats.

Picarones are yummy little treats, deep-fat fried and shaped like donuts.  They are made from a batter that includes squash and sweet potatoes. Ah, a treat that is actually good and healthy (sort of).

Order up some of these picarones and you find they come smothered in molasses syrup - delicious but maybe not so good for you to eat in mass quantities.

Aji (ah-HEE) and Rocoto are incredibly hot and spicy chiles found throughout Peru. You can get these two salsas at any restaurant in the country. Both have excellent flavor, but the Rocoto can be like eating a firecracker - it is hotter than the jalapeno chiles we love in the USA. We keep both of these salsas in our refrigerator and put the salsas on everything.

Aji chili is available to put on your hamburgers and pizzas, as well as everything else. We prefer it now instead of ketchup on our fries.  We will certainly miss Aji chili when we return home next year.

And so our leisurely 4-day weekend comes to an end. It was a good rest, but we are ready to dive back into the humanitarian work that we came here to perform.