5,000 Years Old

According to Wikipedia...

     "Caral was inhabited between roughly 2600 BCE and 2000 BCE, enclosing an area of more than 60 hectares. Caral was described by its excavators as the oldest urban center in the Americas. Accommodating more than 3,000 inhabitants, it is the best studied and one of the largest Norte Chico sites known."

Brad and I so happened to stumble upon this 5,000 year old site in the middle of the Peruvian dessert...

We went to the town of Huacho to spend New Years on the beach and enjoy the sun because we were chilled by the rain in the mountains during our Christmas trek (story soon to come). We spent the New Year's Eve eating fresh ceviche by the port, sitting on the shore while the waves crashed and watching the fireworks simultaneously explode as the clock struck midnight.  

The next day we hired a taxi to drive us out into the desert to this so-called Caral place and walked through the pyramids and ruins of a civilization that lived there almost 5,000 years prior. The history was incredible but even more intriguing was the location; in the middle of a hot, dry, sandy desert. We couldn't help but wonder the reason behind the location and how a society functioned in such harsh conditions. This was one of the first societies in America and its inhabitants established a societal structure and way of urban planning that was followed by many civilizations to come. By far the richest history either of us had ever experienced, we were shocked that this was the first time we had ever even heard of the site. Not only were the pyramids an impressive historical feat, but the entire society was operating around the same time as the pyramids of Egypt. It was absolutely fascinating, to say the least.