Huaca del Sol and Huaca de la Luna

The two pyramids stand a few hundred metres apart in the Moche valley below the dark bulk of Cerro Blanco, and together they formed the ceremonial and administrative core of the Moche state between roughly the first and eighth centuries. Huaca del Sol is the larger, a mound of many millions of adobe bricks, deeply cut into by colonial treasure hunting and closed to visitors. Huaca de la Luna is the one you walk through. Rather than extend outward, the Moche buried each temple and built a new one on top, so excavation has peeled the levels back and left standing facades that still carry their original pigment in registers of fish, serpents, spiders and the fanged face archaeologists call Ai Apaec.

What you actually see

• The painted facades - original red, white, black and ochre pigment on buried walls.
• The stacked temples - excavation cut down through several superimposed building levels.
• Huaca del Sol - the far bigger mound across the plain, visible but closed.
• The site museum - Moche ceramics, metalwork and reconstructions of the friezes.

When to go

Any time of year on this rainless coast. Mornings are cooler and the low light picks out the relief in the friezes far better than midday glare does. Visits leave in small guided groups at set times, so arrive with an hour or two in hand rather than at closing. Excavation continues and individual sectors close without notice.

Honest expectations

It is adobe, and adobe reads as brown until someone explains it, so the guide matters more here than at most sites. Huaca del Sol cannot be entered at all. Walkways are steep in places and the site is fully exposed, with almost no shade. El Niño rain is the standing threat to the paint, and conservation work regularly fences off the best panels.

Nearby

Chan Chan, Trujillo's colonial centre and the beach at Huanchaco are all close.