Travel blog: On the Peruvian history trail

Rhian Nicholson has swapped the bright lights of London for a three month journey across South America from the Pacific to the Atlantic coast. Here is her fifth blog entry:

If you're a staunch subscriber to National Geographic magazine or the words Unesco World Heritage Site have you bouncing up and down on the edge of your seat, the chances are you'll like northern Peru.

From eerily empty mud cities to burial chambers ransacked by grave robbers and the crumbling temples of the great South American civilisations of the past, the gringo trail down through Peru comes with a large dose of history.

Golden headdresses, intricate beaded collars and skeletal remains abound at the Museo Tumbes Real de Sipan, displaying what was left in the tombs of the first and second lords of Sipan after grave robbers decided to make a little money on the side and flog whatever treasures they could find inside on the black market.

There were certainly rich pickings to be had: the tombs of the upper echelons of the Moche society contained pretty much every conceivable object they would need for the afterlife.

More disturbingly this also included dogs, llamas, along with a fair few servants, concubines and even their wives - all poisoned or fed hallucinogenic drugs before being buried alive.

And just to make sure all remained orderly, one lucky guardian was appointed to watch over the tomb - with his feet cut off to stop him from shirking his responsibilities.

Human sacrifice is pretty much a common theme for keeping the gods onside for many of the pre-Inca tribes from northern Peru. The Moche's Pyramid of the Moon near Trujillo, which has withstood the hands of time fairly well (having been buried under a mountain of sand for quite a few centuries) was a place for celebration, worship and shedding the blood of captured enemies.

Its walls are decorated with colourful friezes of warriors being led to their deaths and rather abstract representations of birds and animals: the Moche certainly knew how to liven up a brick wall.

If nothing else it must have been a rather pretty place to take your last breath in its glory days.

A few hundred metres away the Pyramid of the Sun is reputedly Peru's largest Pre-Colombian building, which as the legend goes was constructed in three days by 200,000 men - a feat which if true, would put all of today's 'extreme home makeover' shows to shame - especially when you consider that it's still standing 2,000 years on.

A mere 700 years ago, the Chimu tribe took advantage of the fact that it hardly ever rains in the desert to build a city made of mud.

Chan Chan was once a bustling hub of activity spread over 14 square kilometres until the Spanish conquistadores arrived on the scene.

Today it still holds the title of being the largest pre-Colombian mudbank city in the world but the streets where llamas and people once jostled for space are eerily empty.

Indeed you can almost see the tumbleweed drifting across the semi-restored Palacio Tschuai where the Chimu priests once offered human blood to their gods.

Moving on from pleasing the gods to obeying the Catholic religion, Peru's capital Lima was once home to the headquarters of the Spanish Inquisition in the Americas.

Despite its fearsome reputation the Inquisition only condemned 32 people to death for heresy in 250 years - a mere fraction of those killed in Catholic Europe.

Still the bloodied waxworks models demonstrating the methods used to extract confessions showed they hardly took the softly softly approach - and if found
guilty, 'heretics'could face up to 200 lashes.

And from the gruesome to the macabre, namely the bones of some 70,000 people randomly dumped in the catacombs of the San Francisco monastery.

In a particularly grim twist, someone decided to creatively arrange the leg bones into a circular mosaic with a skull nestling on top.

Still at least you can rest assured that the catacombs are one of the few places in Lima where a hand is unlikely to shoot out and snatch your wallet.

Believe everything you hear about street crime in Lima: even the locals keep a vice like grip on their belongings while for tourists it's certainly better to err on the side of paranoia.

There's a veritable array of characters roaming the streets from blokes offering tattoos one minute and cocaine the next to hunched old ladies trying to offload tacky religious key rings and fat greasy businessmen who eye you up and down and then hiss 'guapa' in your ear.

Although Lima's never going to win any prizes for charm, elegance or beauty, there are a few impressive colonial squares worth whipping out your camera for. But it's certainly no longer the city of kings that Spanish conquistador Franciso Pizzaro intended it to be when he founded the city in 1535.

However, there are two things that Lima does rather well – knock-off clothes at criminally low prices and drinking. Electrical equipment of dubious origin and surprisingly good quality clothes and shoes can all be found in Lima's huge black market.

And if you need something to steady your nerves after an afternoon of pickpocket dodging, there's no shortage of places to grab a Pisco Sour from themed drinking spots.

From sports bars with life-size models of David Beckham to German bier cellars, and from the drink till you drop gringo haunts on 'Pizza Street' to the European-style bars of Miraflores where affluent Limeños (people who live in Lima) splash out more on a night's entertainment than many indigenous people earn in a month.

Indeed with its high rise modern apartments, Starbucks charging US prices and Western chain restaurants, Miraflores could be part of any European city - and a world away from the shanty towns a few miles down the road where millions of people have only recently got electricity and running water. It's no wonder street crime is so high...

Rhian Nicholson