By CLARENCE CHUA

"Viente soles (about RM20)," offered the driver. He resembled former Mexican president Vincente Fox, though smaller in stature and looking rather less distinguished.

For that price, I would rather wait for the autobus (bus).

"Quince soles. Vamous (RM15, let's go!)!" he relented.

I think to myself, RM15 for a two-hour ride to the nearest town - that's pretty reasonable.

"Vamous! El presidente!" I shouted.

Great! For RM5 less I got to sit next to a goat. I wondered what was next. After picking up more people and making the journey look longer than it should, El Presidente's rickety old Toyota came to a shuddering halt at the nearest gas station. He instructed me to continue my journey by bus.

I swore by his mother's grave that if he ever set foot in Malaysia I would feed him to the tigers.

Then, I felt a gentle tug. It was the elderly couple from my ride. Sensing a distressed lost puppy, they reached out and held my hand.

"Joven (young man), we are going to a bus station. Please follow us."

Trujillo is Peru's northernmost city, located along the Pacific coast, three hours away from the Ecuadorian border. There are two little-known archaeological wonders here - the 1,500-year old Las Huacas del Sol y de la Luna (Moche Pyramids of the Sun and the Moon) and the ancient Chimu capital of Chan Chan.

The archaeological sites represent different civilisations that dominated the area at two different periods of history.

Pyramids of the Sun and Moon

The Pyramids are accessible by mini van from the city centre. It is vital to inform the driver of your intended destination. The ride only costs RM1, although the conductor will try to charge an additional RM2.

Travelling here, I felt as if I had never left home. I seemed to be haunted by the apparition of Malaysian taxi drivers everywhere I went. I guess these are the perils of Third World travel. One gets confused between feeling that one shouldn't haggle with poverty and hating being ripped off at the same time.

Again, the locals came to my rescue, chiding the young conductor for his dishonesty. In times like these, I can only look to the heavens and thank the Almighty.

Descendants of the Moches still live around the pyramids. Although most of the ancient city remains lost to the drifting sands, irrigation canals built by the government have allowed villagers to transform certain parts of the desert into an oasis with verdant vegetation.

Do not venture too far from the archaeological site on your own, though. There have been incidences of tourists being robbed and raped.

The Pyramids of the Sun and Moon are said to be the largest structures ever built in South America. They form the spiritual structure of the Moche Empire. Ongoing excavations by archaeologists continue to reveal intricate colour motifs and grisly evidence of human sacrifice.

However, one puzzling question continues to plague historians to this day - they know who built the pyramids but where Moche came from still remains a mystery. And this has spurred wild conspiracy theories of early contact with oriental cultures, and even extraterrestrial visitors from space.

Chan Chan

The largest pre-Colombian city in South America, Chan Chan is located 5km west of Trujillo. The mud city was constructed by the Chimor, which grew out of the remnants of the Moche civilisation and remained the imperial capital until the Incans conquered it in the 15th century.

The labyrinth of passages in the city is a child's dream come true - each leading to ceremonial rooms, burial chambers, temples reservoirs and some residences. I have never been to Egypt but Chan Chan has a picture-perfect resemblance to the arid regions of the Nile.

The walls themselves are carved with intricate designs of fish, pelicans and nets for catching various sea creatures.

Unlike all other coastal ruins in Peru, Chan Chan is located close to the Pacific Ocean, where extreme weather often threatens its delicate structures. In 1986, it was inducted as a Unesco World Heritage Site.

Alien nation

From the magnificent ruins of Machu Picchu to the mysterious Nazca Lines, Peru has it all, and so it is no wonder that it has become a favourite hunting ground for conventional and alternative historians like Erich von Daniken and Graham Hancock.

The latter two claimed that the Nazca Lines were landing strips for extraterrestrials visiting Earth. The pyramids were supposedly built not as burial chambers for the kings but as a warning from an advance civilisation to us of an impending natural catastrophe so great that it could send us back to the ice age.

I must confess, I was once a fan of both authors. UFOs beaming down building blueprints to civilise savages capable of only three things - hunting, having sex and and then dying. Intergalactic travel, extraterrestrials, Stargates, Star Wars!! Who wouldn't be fascinated?

Well, that lasted until I started paying my own bills.

But it is this deadly concoction of facts, fascination and mystery that drew me to Peru. Whether it's human or little green men from Mars who built these structures, I think to be here in itself is out of this world.