ayacucho

On Friday Jorge and I got on a bus for Ayacucho. We were in the front seats on the second story of a double-decker bus. So nice, they gave us pillows, blankets, cookies, sandwhiches, tea, and Les Mis in spanish. TEN HOURS LATER we arrived. I am not a morning person. Sometimes I even want to kill people when I wake up too early. Also, traveling makes me irritable. But we took a taxi to his friend´s house and they gave us food. Then we went around to see the town square, cathedrals and stuff and got lucama ice cream with chocolate chips. Lucuma is this really awesome fruit used in desserts. It was so hot and sunny- awesome because up until last week it´s been freezing in Lima. Then we went to this cultural museum. I have a picture with scene-in-a-box thing they have here. They´re so gorgeous. Usually there are nativity scenes inside, but it can be anything- any kind of religious or secular scenes, from an inch tall to one of this size.The coolest one I saw was in a market, a scene of a shop with people making all these crazy masks.

Then we took a nap and woke up to lunch waiting for us. They made pachamanca, which I think I wrote about before. They take all kinds of things, chicken, pork, sweet potatoes, corn, sometimes fish, sometimes platains, these big green beans like soy beans that are really good, then cook them in banana leaves or a big pot, and cook them in steam in a hole in the ground with rocks on top. So delicious.

Then we checked out more of the area. It´s the dry season so a lot of it looks desert-y. It´s a really rural area. You can see mountains all around you, and also big piles of dirt. Then we went back to the town square and got juice. The center looks like the town square in Cusco. I´m going to miss all the juice places here, of every imaginable combination. We got peach and pineapple juice and it was so romantic. Then it got dark and we went outside to the park and it was a holy day for a virgin and they had all these amazing fireworks. We took a video, I´ll put it up later.

The next morning we woke up early and took an hour and a half taxi ride to somewhere else in Ayacucho where the Spanish army surrendered to the Peruvian independence army. It was a group taxi, and we sat with a Canadian nun who has lived here for four years. She went with us to the site of the monument to the generals in the war. A ton of other countries helped peru defeat Spain.


Then some kids who were hanging around asked us if we wanted to take a horseback ride to see waterfalls nearby.
It was fun. I haven´t ridden a horse in so long. We only walked, but it was still fun. Jorge´s horse was way too small for him, which was pretty entertaining.


It was so beautiful! We got off our horses and walked down this steep trail down to the stream, freezing cold from the andes mountains. They had a few mini huts with benches to relax, so we sat down and looked at the mountains and waterfalls.

Then we walked around different artisinal markets and food markets. We ate ceviche and caldo gallina, hen soup. So good. We wanted to try cuy (guinea pig) but it seemed too hot to eat weird fried pets for the first time. Oh yeah, also, this whole time I´m getting sunburned. I haven´t worn sunscreen in like 4 months, and I didn´t think it would be that hot in Ayacucho. I brought face sunscreen, but it wasn´t enough.

Then we went to the house where the Spanish signed surrender papers. This is one of the cannons from the war.

And this is a doorway of a really old church.

Then we rode the bus home and took another nap. We woke up a little irritable-my shoulders were burnt to a crisp and Jorge was coming down with the flu. But we agreed that we had a wonderful trip. Then there was a thunder and lightning storm! I didn´t realize how much I´ve missed those. It never even rains in Lima. This one was awesome, and felt so good on my sunburn. Then we packed our stuff, and went back to the juice place. Then took the bus back to the Lima. There was a crying baby on the bus. But he wasn´t too bad. He only cried for like half an hour of the ten hour ride, so we counted our blessings. That´s all I can think of for now. One last picture: