I saw my first llama down the street from our hostal. They are so cute, but we scared him with all our picture-taking and gawking. All I could think about was how I could make a cute sweater out of him....

My favorite part of this trip was my daily trip to the Inca Baths. Incan kings used to come here to bath in the natural hot springs and now it is a popular place for locals and tourists. There was no hot water at our hostal (shocking..!) so every morning at 6am my roomates and I got up before everyone else so we could be the first ones there. I also had a scary massage... no one can compare to my Momma.

Since the excavation is finished for this summer, we were rewarded with a trip to Cajamarca. The city is in the highlands, and yes, we were on a scary bus winding through mountain roads at 100 miles per hour. It was terrifying! This the view from the hostal we are staying at.

At the top of the summit there where three huge white crosses. Every three years the people of Cerro Blanco reinact the crucifiction of Christ and carry these crosses up the mountain (in their flip flops!)

Today I was part of a group of 4 that decided to climb to the summit of the mountain. It was the most challenging hike I have ever been on, but it was worth it when I finally got to the top. This is me and Stephanie in front of the valley.

My group: Mike, me, Maggie and Rebecca. Our group is awesome!

Maggie and I after a long day of sorting through buckets of things that had been dug up. We were the cleanest ones in our group!

No matter what has happened that day, we always manage to smile and have fun together.

Wherever we go the neighborhood kids follow us. They love to see what we are doing and ask us for candy.

After lunch we visited San Jose de Moro, a funerary center. The Moche brewed chicha beer in mass quantities and buried important rulers here.

No light, no seat, no survivors! I cant believe I just ate lunch at a "restaurant" with a bathroom like this! No wonder there is no light!

After visiting El Brujo we stopped for lunch and I had my first taste of ginuea pig. It was pretty good actually, a little oily but tasty! This is the head of the ginuea pig, can you find his row of teeth?!

Kelsey and I in front of a tomb in El Brujo uncovered in 2005. The tomb held a woman known as "the tatooed lady".

This another Huaca called El Brujo. It is very similar to Huace de la Luna. This picture does not show the immensity of this structure.

It is worth getting up at 5am for this....

This is my view of the valley from the top of the mountain (the mountain I always refer to is part of the Andes). Peru is a place of complete chaos and contradiction. Parts of the mountain are so dry that not even a cactus can survive. Other parts are so moist it looks like a rainforest. All this is 15 minutes from the coast, which is dry and brown. It is so dry because the Andes block the rain that comes from the east. One side of the Andes is green, the other brown. It is so amazing. Hot and cold at the same time. The hardest part to get used to is the change in smells. One minutes I will smell the sugary sweetness of burning sugar cane, then the next minute O smell cow manure and the garbage that lines the streets. I am always trying to figure this place out.

I know this looks boring, but this was the highlight of my day. I found a big stone that was made smooth as glass by years and years of grinding food on it. The cool thing about this was that it was in its original position on the mountain. We find tons of these but they are always broken and have tumbled down the mountain. This one was buried and I saw a corner peaking out at me while I was hiking. I dusted it off and then used my trovel to get the dirt off of it. Finally I used my brush to make it pretty and clean for a picture. We gave it GPS coordinates and marked it with orange tape after measuring it. I was so happy! The other students found some fox poo and stone beads while they were excavating. I like my rock.

This a picture I took from the top of the mountain. Today I was chosen to go with the GPS specialist to scout out markers that needed coordiantes assigned to them. We hiked up and down the mountain all day while everyone else starting excavating. I was kinda bummed out that I didnt get to excavate on our first day with a permit but when I saw how dirty everyone else was I realized I was lucky!

Home sweet home.... My bed is the one on the left.

This job does have its perks.....

I'm having fun, I promise.

Most people hang clothes on a clothes line (background) - not archaeologists. We hang bags of soaking ancient dirt on the line to dry (foreground). The neightbors were watching us all day.

I couldn't help but think of my beloved chocolate milk the entire time I was doing this.... Mmmm

Today I volunteered to skip the mountain and work in the lab. We did more flotation. This is a dirt sample from a excavation that was done in 2005

Im sure the villagers were puzzled at why the Americans were so amused with their farm animals, but for some reason we had fun chasing the chickens and puppies. The cow was cute too....

There is no good system of trash pick-up in Peru. In the cities the streets are lined with garbage. The rural areas are just as bad so we all went around with big black bags and cleaned up the village. Thank goodness I had my shots before I left....

When we arrived at the school house we were invited inside and given heaping plates of hot food; white rice, chicken (skin and all), and manioc. It was spicy and pretty good. We were served chica marone (boiled purple corn) to drink. It was not good. Then some speeches were given by some members of the village, thanking Prof. Billman for everything he had done for them. There was a small stereo in the building so someone blasted some salsa music while the children and some of people from our group danced. (I didnt dance because even the people of Peru would recognize that I suck at dancing)

As we climbed the mountain, the children in the village came running out of their houses and held our hands as we climbed up. They were such good climbers, even in their Barbie flip flops!

Our bus driver pulled off to the side of the road and let us out. We freaked out when all we could see was sugar cane feilds. Our Professor was not with us and so we tried to get back on the bus, convinced that we were in the wrong place. A woman selling cola on the side of the road waved to us and pointed to the cane and said "Cuidad de Dios." So we just walked through the huge stalks of cane until we emerged in an empty feild. Sure enough, there was the crumbling city, surronded in mist. This is a view from the top of the mountain where the archaeological site Cuidad de Dios is. The city is down below me. The white building is the school, building that Prof. Billman built.

Saturday was a slow day. We took a bus to Cuidad de Dios (City of God). The "city" is close to the site we are digging and was excavated by Professor Billman a few years ago. The site was looted constantly because of the presence of gold artifacts so Professor Billman made a deal with the local people. The villagers protect the site for us in exchange for clean water and a school building. This year, Professor Billman is working to build a medical clinic and museum.

This is the roof top of the lab where we dry our artifacts after washing them. Today we did some flotation, where we use big buckets of water to float organic material to the top to skim off and study. I dont know how anything dries here, the air is always wet.

Beach front property in Huanchaco; just a little different from Southern California, huh Dad?

Kelsey and I - the only ones that come home without sunburns. We became fast friends and I already convinced her to come to NM to visit Chaco. Aren't our matching hats cute?

This is when I found a handle to a ceramic vessel. I only found flat shreds all day so I was pretty excited to see something different. Okay, I know I look like I have a beard and a mustache, but it is just dirt! I always get covered in dirt becasue I like to be on my hands a knees, leaving no stone unturned. I am known as "Mudstone" because I have a knack for finding Mudstone debatoge. Debotage is pieces of stone that are knocked off a core when making stone tools. The mudtone was imported by the Moche.

This is our third day at the site doing more surface colletcion. It doesn't look like much, but it is actually a grid of very carefully measured squares marked by string and tape. We try to follow the natural boundaries such as house walls and hearths when making squares. It is a lot of tedious work but still exciting (well to me it is anyway). We have seperate bags for pottery sherds, stone tools, bone, and debotage. Today my friend Kelsey and I examined a wall that was filled in with "garbage". To an archaeologist ancient garbage is a gold mine! We found serveral stone tools and animals bones as well as a grinding stone. It was so cool!

When we returned to Huanchaco from our long day working we went in search of food. We are only given rolls and bananas to eat all day, a tyical Peruvian lunch, but not enough for most of us .We found a restuarant called "The Wave" where the surfers hang out. They advertised their Mexican food on a sandwhich board outside and we couldn't resist. We sat on the balconey and watched the sun sparkling on the ocean. Then the owner of the restaurant brought up some live musicians for us. They played the guitar, mountain flute, and drums. We especially loved it when they played "La Bamba" for us. We felt pretty special since we were the only ones in the whole building. The food was unlike any Mexican food I have ever had, but it was very fresh. After our meal we went to see an old artisan who works ou of her house. I requested a vase depicting the Moche decapitation god. I showed her a picture in my camera from Huaca de la Luna, and low and behold she had a vase that was just what I was looking for. Handcrafted and painted and I got it for like 18 American dollars. That's just wrong.

This is Trujillo, the 3rd largest city in Peru. Everyone is very nice here - they smile and wave at us. The taxis are crazy! The only way to describe it is complete chaos. There are no traffic rules and yet no road rage. The cars come within centimeters of each other but I have yet to see a crash.

The hike down the mountain is even harder than the ascent because we have to carry buckets full of our artifacts - bagged and labeled - down with us.

The site we are digging is at the very top of this mountain. The hike is very vertical but fun.

The group - minus a few people who were brave enough to try hotdogs the night before.

The whole area was covered in a misty fog - it was like being in a cloud.

This is our first project - walking around looking for things that resemble artifacts. I found some painted pottery sherds and a lithic (stone tool).

At the dig site....

This is me with a big ol' wad of coca leaves in my mouth. I had a small handfull and chewed them up into a nasty grass tasting clump. Then a small needle-like applicator covered in lime powder is inserted into the center of the wad to activate the alkaloids. I chewed it for a few hours, my mouth was numb the whole time. Coca leaves are used to combat altitude sickness and they also allow the blood to soak in more oxygen. Everyone chewed coca before we began our climb to the dig site. The spot where were are is one of the only places in Peru where coca can be grown. Don't be mad Momma! It's safe...

This is Chelsea and I at the top of Huaca de la Luna

This is an image that appears in the hallway where people are escorted to the top of the temple to be sacrificed. There are rows of carved spiders as well, representative of the way the Moche carried out the sacrifice. The victim was drained of all blood and the blood was given to the ruler, who would consume it in front of the people gathered in the courtyard .Then the victim was dismembered and thrown in a room with other previous sacrifices. Needless to say, it was a little creepy t think about all this stuff while standing the very room where these things took place. I won't even go in to the details of torture....

Huaca de la Luna

This is Huaca de la Luna, the temple across from Huaca del Sol. Between the two temples is a huge courtyard where Moche subjects would gather to watch ceremonies . This is what the common person would have seen approaching the temple. Very impressive, even today. This room is covered by a metal roof. The archaeologists only excavate what they are prepared to preserve. The Peruvian government just granted them a milion dollars to preserve this temple. The paint is all original and the walls depict gruesome scences of human sacrifice. Cool!

July 1st - trip to Huanca de la Luna

This is Huaca del Sol, the largest adobe structure in the New World. It is made with millions of adobe bricks and only 1/3 of it is left. The Spanish destroyed 2/3 of it a few hundered years ago. We were not allowed to get close to it because of some contruction or something. But it is immense!

These are the reeds (totora) that the locals use the make the boats. They are grown in sunken freshwater ponds just a few meters from the beach. I saw two HUGE dead rats the size of rabbits while I was exploring the area. No wild pigs yet... The town in the distance is Huanchaco.

These boats range in size. Humans first came to Peru 10-12,000 years ago and stayed because the ocean here is extremly rich in marine resources. The water is very cold because of the Humbolt current, a wave of cold water from Antartica. But these boats manage to catch large amounts of cold water fish. Chelsea and I were approached by a man offering to take us on a boat ride. We didn't know what he was saying until he pointed to his boat and made the universal sign for money. We freaked out and both yelled "no, no!" Yikes! The taxi ride to our hostal was scary enough!