Sunday 9th September – Chavin Ruins

Today I took yet another long bus ride out the the Chavin de Huantar site – where I was able to see the ruins which date back to the period between 900 and 200BC. The Chavin ruins are much much older than the Incan Ruins which were only built in about the 1500s AD. In contrast, these ruins are nearly 3000 years old! We first visited the very good museum where we were able to see a number of carved stone heads which had been discovered scattered around the ruins when they were excavated. A number of the heads have some sort of mucus coming out of their noses and no one is really sure why they artists decided to represent their work in this way! Super interesting!  After visiting the museum we headed to the site – really impressive considering its age. We were able to walk around the ruins and even enter the tunnels to view the impressive Lanzon which is a stelae that is still in place. Overall it was a really interesting day trip out of Huaraz to see the remains of what was such an ancient civilisation.