Joyce and I along with 10 of the young missionaries went to see the Cauhuachi Temple ruins. We all loaded in to a SMALL minivan at 1:30pm. The AC was on for about 10 minutes then, no more AC.
After about an hour (17 miles) on a dirt road we arrived at the ruins.
The place is just amazing in many ways. First, how did a civilization survive in this harsh environment.
Second, why all the effort to build such a magnificent structure where it was surely a struggle to simply survive.
Third, how did the structure that is made of the local soil, turned into adobe, last for 2000 years.
In trees in the background there is water. They would carry the water in large ceramic containers
and pour it into these underground cisterns located all around the temple.
It was amazing to see that they could grow cotton down in an old river bed
that only ran when there was a big enough rain 40 or 50 miles away to make it run. I guess I wasn't all too surprised to see Bermuda grass on the edge of the fields. :)
There were pottery shards everywhere. Some pieces were very thin some were a half inch thick and seemed like they came from very large pots or bowls.
Up near the top it was super windy but down low there was no wind at all. It's no wonder the place is covered in sand after being abandoned for over 1000 years.
The locals say that the exploration team ran out of money several years ago, if work doesn't begin again soon much of what is now visible will be re-covered in sand.Imagine all 12 of us, plus the driver, in a mini-van.
We had a great afternoon. We are glad we got to go. Here is wiki take on the place. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cahuachi
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