Trujillo

The Moche Valley was home to two of ancient Peru's great coastal societies. The Moche, between roughly the 1st and 9th centuries AD, built the adobe temples of the Sun and the Moon below Cerro Blanco; later the Chimú made Chan Chan, at the mouth of the valley, the capital of the kingdom of Chimor from about 900 until the Inca conquered it around 1470. In 2018 archaeologists working at Trujillo uncovered the world's largest known site of child sacrifice from the Chimú era.

The Spanish city was founded in 1534 by Diego de Almagro, named after Trujillo, Francisco Pizarro's home town in Spain, and placed among four Chimú settlements. By 1544 it had some 300 houses and an economy built on sugar cane, wheat and livestock. An earthquake in February 1619 almost destroyed it and killed around 400 people; the cathedral that stands today was built between 1647 and 1666, and a wall was raised around the town against pirates. When the wall came down, Avenida España was laid along its line under a master plan of 1942.

On 29 December 1820 Trujillo proclaimed its independence from Spain in the Plaza de Armas, and in 1824 Simón Bolívar made it the provisional capital of Peru while he campaigned against the royalists. The city was the birthplace of Peru's judiciary and of Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre, founder of the APRA movement, and in 1932 it was the scene of a military revolt. Migration from the Andean provinces pushed the population past 400,000 by 1981, and the city spread into a metropolis of several districts.

Trujillo presents itself as Peru's capital of culture. It calls itself the capital of the marinera, the coastal courtship dance performed with handkerchiefs, which has been declared national cultural heritage, and it holds a national marinera contest every January. It is also called the cradle of the Peruvian paso horse, a breed with a smooth gait shown by riders called chalanes in competitions during the Spring Festival, when the city lives up to its nickname of the city of everlasting spring.

The poet César Vallejo and Haya de la Torre are among the prominent writers associated with the city, and Trujillo has a lively arts scene, a school of arts and a book festival. Religious life is Catholic, with some ten colonial churches inside the old wall and others in Huanchaco, Huamán and Moche.

At Huanchaco, fishermen still make and ride the caballitos de totora, narrow reed boats used on this coast since Moche and Chimú times, and competitions in them are held alongside surfing contests, including a longboard world championship held since 2010. The people of the north coast think of themselves as warm and outgoing, and Trujillanos are proud of their food, their dance and their part in independence.

Trujillo is Peru's third most populous city and the centre of its third-largest metropolitan area; the national statistics office put the metropolitan population at about 935,000 in 2014. The metropolis joins the old city to districts such as Víctor Larco Herrera, La Esperanza, El Porvenir, Florencia de Mora and the beach town of Huanchaco, and much of its recent growth has come from migrants from the highland provinces of La Libertad and from Cajamarca and Áncash.

The economy rests on commerce, services and manufacturing. Leather and footwear are made in a cluster of more than a thousand small and medium firms, shopping malls and supermarkets have spread on the main roads, and the irrigated valleys around the city grow sugar cane and export crops on a large scale. The universities draw students from across the north.

Life begins early, and the centre is busiest in the morning and evening, when families gather in the Plaza de Armas. Public concern is dominated by crime: extortion of bus lines and businesses by criminal gangs has made Trujillo a focus of national emergency measures.

Trujillo cooks in the confident style of the north coast. Its best-known local dish is shámbar, a soup of beans with smoked ham, mostly served on Mondays. Sopa teóloga, traditionally made in Moche, is a turkey or chicken broth with soaked bread, potatoes, milk and cheese, and cabrito, stewed kid goat, is served across the region.

Seafood comes from the coast just outside the city. Huanchaco is famous for its ceviche, raw fish cured in lime with onion and chilli, and its seafront restaurants are the place where many Trujillanos eat it at lunchtime. Fish and shellfish dishes appear on menus across the city.

For sweets, Trujillo is known for its alfajores, biscuits sandwiched with filling, which visitors carry home as the classic sweet souvenir of the city of everlasting spring. Bakeries and sweet shops in the centre sell them by the box. Among the region's typical drinks are the chichas of Moche and of Magdalena de Cao, made with jora.