December, 2011 Dear Family and Friends: Not allowing ones holiday blurb to be mundane, or painfully dull, is challenging

we realize. (You could stop reading right here!) Our story starts in northern Peru, near the city of Chiclayo. (We promise to get to the mundane stuff later!). After a week on the busy streets of Lima this June, Jeannette and Peter jumped on a northbound plane to spend a few days in the ancient kingdom of the Moches. And who, you may ask, were the Moches? This pre-Inca civilization constructed adobe brick pyramids between 100 and 700 A.D., not unlike those of the Aztecs and Egyptians that rose high above the coastal plane. The Moches flourished socially, culturally and artistically before mysteriously declining. In 1987, tomb raiders struck and looted the treasures of a Moche burial mound at the village of Sipan. Golden back-plates, earrings, and necklaces found their way into the hands of black marketers who sold antiquities to collectors as far away as Philadelphia. With government support, Peruvian archeologists Walter Alva and his wife Susana Meneses took control of the excavations and managed to preserve many more treasures in the Lord of Sipan museum. The artisanship of Sipan jewelry is breathtaking: exquisitely crafted forms of golden cats, delicately spun gold and silver spiders and crabs, turquoise inlaid octopi, and other (religious?) animal forms. Even more spectacular are ostentatious turquoise inlaid, rounded, gigantic golden earrings fit for divas like Elizabeth Taylor. The Moches perfected metallurgical techniques that bound complex alloys of gold, copper and silver. Up close the Moche ruins are immense clusters of truncated pyramids displaying sophisticated, albeit eroding, urban designs. We were able to climb about these citadels and peer far across the planes toward other Moche ruins. They left no writing to decipher, but their civilization attained heights, as depicted in the pictures on their pottery and other artwork. This was a year we connected with the Peruvian family. We wanted Elias (age 8) to better know his Lima cousins and converse with them in Spanish. Samira (19) wanted to visit with her half sister Tamara (17) who lies in Trujillo. There were many family gatherings, trips and parties (and even more photos). Jeannette stayed on in Lima with Elias for five weeks after Pete and Samira returned to Reno in early July. Back stateside, a few things didnt quite go as planned. Samira hit a few youthful speed bumps before moving in with her off campus roommates for another semester at UNR. Jeannette fell while boarding a Reno-bound plane in San Francisco while returning from Peru in early August shattering her left shoulder. Surgery immediately followed and a metal plate was inserted with seven screws. She has regained considerable range of motion in her left arm, but more rehabilitation remains. Elias is now in third grade at Coral Academy Charter School and enjoys playing guitar. Samira has yet to decide on a major/career path. In late October Pete and Jeannette slipped off for a refreshing trip to Acapulco, Mexico, where we attended a mining convention. Classic and stately Acapulco is a legendary resort town with excellent beaches and tasty seafood; it was well worth the visit. When your journeys dont always go as planned, they may prove to be unexpectedly rich just the same. We hope your journeys through 2011 were as well. The Dilles-Caillaux family

The Dilles Caillaux 2011, HAPPY NEW YEAR 2012!!!

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