First Person Journalism: Chan Chan, Peru

A Special Report for CBS.com

(CBS)  On assignment for The CBS Evening News with Dan Rather, producer Bruce Rheins, correspondent Bill Whitaker, and their camera crew encountered a most spectacular record of El Nino's effects. Bruce's first-hand account, along with his spectacular pictures, is one in a continuing series of First Person Journalism reports for CBS.com.

As spectacular as the Inca ruins of Machu Picchu are, with magnificent vistas and llamas and alpacas that may be viewed up close, what may be even more amazing are some ruins on the northern coast of Peru; the ancient city of Chan Chan.

Chan Chan is the largest city built of mud in the world; it is also the oldest city (as opposed to towns and villages) in the Americas, first built in the 11th Century. Being made of mud, it succumbed many times to various mega-Ninos over the centuries.

Archaeologist Cesar Galvez thinks it was nearly completely rebuilt in the 13th Century, after a devastating El Nino melted nearly everything, and destroyed Chan Chan's canal system.

"The irrigation system was the basis of the Chimu society," he says. And to insure the gods' favor? "After El Nino rains, they killed the prisoners, and human sacrifices were a common practice."

Part of the story of El Nino can be seen in the intricate mud carvings, still preserved after nearly a thousand years. At one point, fish were the main decoration.

After mega-Ninos that drove the fish away, the Chimu carved rodents clled nutria; they are aquatic animals which survived when the fish went away.

Also, the walls inside Chan Chan's sanctuary represent fishing nets a plaintive appeal to the gods to restore their sustenance.

There may be no other place on earth that has recorded and displayd El Nino's effects as meticulously and thoroughly as Chan Chan, Peru.

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