Summer Vacation to the Past

If you’re in the process of planning your summer vacation, and want to go to somewhere few others have visited, travel 5,000 years into the past and visit Caral in Peru. What a glorious sight it would be to witness sunrise over the ruins!

At Caral you’ll find an ancient urban center with pyramid temples, sunken plaza, an amphitheater, and a complex of housing foundations. This was a city in the New World that could rival those of the ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia and Egypt. The discovery of this 163-acre city shocked archaeologists because it was dated 1500 years earlier than they ever expected. Elaborate rituals were performed atop the city’s red, yellow and white pyramids with priests moving up the steep stairways that narrowed as they approached the top. The sound of flutes could be heard, like those excavated in the city’s great amphitheater. What productions may have gone on here? Expertly engineered canals irrigated fields of cotton, chili peppers, pumpkin, squash and sweet potatoes. Extensive trading brought goods from the majestic surrounding mountains and the sea. Different neighborhoods reveal the houses of farmers, traders, artisans and elites in a well-planned city complex. Amazingly, no evidence of warfare or domination has yet to be found. Could this be the rare Utopia we’ve sought for centuries with no success?

A journey to Caral reveals archaeology at work. Peruvian archaeologist Ruth Shady and her team are digging through the dust of the centuries and reconstructing ruins hoping to bring an ancient society back to life. Archaeologists and trained local people guide visitors through the site, and the number of tourists has been tripling. More and more information about the startling site is becoming available, and Shady is teaming with the Peruvian government to make Caral and major visitor’s site.

Caral is 120 miles from Lima, and you can rent a car for about $35 per day to travel there on your own. Accommodations in nearby towns range from $12 to $25 per night. For $99 you can go on an all-day tour from your Lima hotel.

The time to go is now before it’s littered with souvenir shacks, and chatting tourists obstruct the awesome sunsets and imagined whispers of ancient flutes.