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Do you remember the pilgrims and the Indians? The pilgrims were some of the first people from Europe to come to America to make new homes there. They were mostly from Europe, and they set up many towns called "colonies" all up and down the East Coast of the United States. Maybe you have visited some of these towns like my hometown of Williamsburg, Virginia or Kevin's hometown of Philadelpia.

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We've taken you to some of the very old towns in Peru where people lived before the Europeans came. Just yesterday Kevin and I went to a place that is much newer than those, but still very old. It is called Trujillo and it is as old as the colonial towns in America. However, the Europeans that came to Peru were from Spain instead of England, so the houses and streets look different.

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In Trujillo, there is a lot of guano, a type of fertilizer made of mostly bird poop. Believe it or not, they made a lot of money and competition was pretty fierce for a while in this trade of bird poop. They use the poop to give to plants for food.

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Even though Trujillo is growing larger, it still has a historical feel. As you can see by our pictures, many of the buildings are painted with bright colors like blue and yellow. However, next to all these things from the past are things from the present day; It is strange to see them next to each other. In downtown, zillions of taxis, street vendors and money changers work in front of old colonial mansions, or large houses, and big churches called cathedrals.

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I got some money in a beautiful bank that was once an old colonial building. Because of the way it looked, I almost expected to get real gold instead of modern day money! Once I was inside, though, it looked very much like a regular bank.

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Trujillo has a park in the center of town called a plaza. Everyone goes there, especially at night. The plaza is the most important center for meeting people, kind of like the playground at your school. Any time of the day you can find people there-- kids selling candy, students talking, or musicians playing music. Kevin and I met a lot of friends at the Plaza!

I wish England had had something like the Plaza so we would have more of them in the US, like they do al over Latin America where the Spanish ruled!

Abeja