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The desert area around Chimbote, though rarely visited, is littered with archeological remains, including an enormous defensive wall known as the Great Wall of Peru , thought to be over a thousand years old. Twenty kilometres north of Chimbote, the Panamerican Highway crosses a rocky outcrop into the Santa Valley, where the wall - a stone and adobe structure more than 50km long - rises from the sands of the desert. The enormous structure was first noticed in 1931 by the Shippee-Johnson Aerial Photographic Expedition, and there are many theories about its construction and purpose. Archeologist Julio Tello thought it was pre-Chimu, since it seems unlikely that the Chimu would have built such a lengthy defensive wall so far inside the limits of their empire. It may, however, have been constructed prior to a second phase of military expansion or, as the historian Garcilaso de la Vega believed, the Spaniards might have built it here as a defence against the threat of Inca invasion from the coast or from the Callejon de Huaylas. In its entirety, the wall stretches from Tambo Real near the Santa estuary in the west up to Chuqucara in the east, where there are scattered remains of pyramids, fortresses, temples and stone houses. To see the wall, take any Trujillo bus north from Chimbote along the Panamerican Highway, and get off when you see a bridge over the Rio Santa. From here, simply head upstream for three to four hours and you'll arrive at the best surviving section of the wall, just to the west of the Hacienda Tanguche, where the piled stone is cemented with mud to more than 4m high in places. Further up the valley lies a double-walled construction with outer turrets, discovered by Gene Savoy's aerial expedition in the late 1950s. Savoy reported 42 stone-built strongholds in the higher Santa Valley in only two days' flying, evidence that supports historians' claims that this was the most populated valley on the coast prior to the Spanish Conquest. Hard to believe today, it seems more probable if you bear in mind that this desert region, still alive with wildlife such as desert foxes and condors, is fed by the largest and most reliable of the coastal rivers. In 1962 Savoy led an expedition into the area on foot, finding that most of the parapeted defensive structures he had seen from the air were well hidden from the valley floor. Once you climb up to them, however, you can see (on a clear day) the towering peaks of the Cordillera Blanca to the east and the Pacific Ocean in the west. The climate here is hot but ideal for camping , and the only things you'll need to carry are a sunhat, sunblock, enough food, ample drinking water and a sleeping roll (blanket and mat); detailed maps of the region are available from the Instituto Geografico Militar in Lima. Remember though that this is off the beaten track and there is no tourism infrastructure whatsoever, so make sure someone knows where you're going and your expected return date.
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