Life's a Beach



This part of Peru is not a pretty place.  It is a desert and everything is monotone brown.  But people have been living here for thousands of years, and developed products and technologies that are still in daily use all over the world.  Hands up who knew that potatoes, tomatoes, and the cotton variety most grown, originated here?  I did not.  What is really cool is that the people here, who are thoroughly modern by the way, still use the stuff developed by their ancestors many thousands of years ago. Fisherman put their nets out in reed boats (buttressed with a styrofoam core)  A lady I spoke to lives in an adobe house made of sun dried mud bricks that was built by her father about 14 years ago.  The next day I visited an archeological excavation of a 1300 year old (huge) temple made of adobe bricks.  The people who lived here 3000 years ago developed irrigation systems to take the water flowing from the mountains and make the desert fertile.  Irrigation is still used today.  They had highly advanced pottery and ceramics, check out the replica vase and compare it with the features of the Moche man next to it.





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