Peru Part 1!

Ok, so I wrote this over a week ago, but we have been having such a hard time finding an internet connection fast enough to allow us to upload pictures. Bleh! Anyway, here´s how we spent the first half of our time in Peru!

We arrived in Lima after two days of serious bus rides: we crossed the Ecuador-Peru border via a bus from Loja, Ecuador to Piura, Peru (8 hours). From Piura it was 15 hours to Lima, overnight on a luxurious Cruz del Sur bus. We stayed in Lima for three days. And what can I say about Lima? The day we arrived Lima was sunny and reminiscent of L.A., with its palm trees, ocean views, and TRAFFIC. From there on out we experienced the famous grey, cloudy weather that Lima is known for. We stayed in Miraflores, a nice, modern area with lots of tourists, restuarants and bars. Food was expensive. We tried going to this huge musuem, but most of it was closed for renovation (though there was an interesting exhibit about the terroist activities in the 80´s and 90´s). We actually spent a good deal of time at the LarcoMar shopping mall, built into the cliffs over the ocean, where we saw two movies. And we had good sushi one night.

So, yeah. As you can see, our time in Lima was pretty blah. We didn´t even take any pictures! But it wasn´t bad, just not too exciting. From there, we set out for the central highlands...

HUANCAYO

Strange rock formations in Huancayo

The journey up into the mountains from Lima was gorgeous, but also a pretty big shock to the system in terms of altitude gained. We tried to hydrate but still arrived in Huancayo (3,270 meters!) with headaches, out of breath, and a general feeling of malaise. Huancayo is a really cool place. It´s the commercial center of the central Andes in Peru, a place where people from the northern andes, the amazon, the southern highlands, and the coast (Lima) all come to buy and sell food and other items. It´s located in the Montaro valley, and the surrounding villages are all known for their artesan crafts- gourd carving, weaving, jewelry making, silver and alabaster goods, natural dyes, etc. And it´s a big city! But honestly the people there were among the nicest we´ve met during all of our travels. People would literally stop us on the street and be like, ¨Hey! Where are you from, nice to meet you , welcome to Huancayo, how do you like Peru?¨They really seemed to like and appreciate tourists, which was a refreshing change from, well, most other places.

So we decided to stay for a while. We stayed at a hostel called La Casa de la Abuela, a really great old house filled with antiques, with a delicious breakfast and $2 dinners. The familial atmosphere encouraged us to stick around to take cooking and salsa dancing lessons through the associated tour company, Incas del Peru. And our week of classes was great! Every morning we´d go with our cooking instructor, Nelli, to the central market to buy ingredients for the class. This was the best- the market is incredible, a little intimidating but easily navigated with Nelli on our side to do the bargaining. My favorite part of the market was the hall of potatoes- I think they really did have all of Peru´s 3,000 varieties of potatoes in this one warehouse, in enormous mountains. Men were constantly running by with 100 kilo bags of potatoes strapped to their backs, like ¨get out of my way!¨. And that was just the potatoes, there were endless amounts of fruits, vegetables, cheeses, fish, and the nightmarish hall of meat.




After the market we´d cook for a few hours and then eat the fruits of our labor. Our instructor was really knowledgeable and taught us a lot about Peruvian cuisine, especially of the Andean variety.

Buying condiments at the market

In the afternoons we had our salsa dancing lessons. I found salsa to be really hard, but then, I´m not much of a dancer. We did improve a lot over those few days. It´s all about the hips, you see.

On the weekend we tagged along on a field trip with some American college students from our hostel who where volunteering at a local orphanage. We went on a day hike with the kids up to some pre-Incan ruins.

The next day we set out with our new friend from England, Susannah, for Huancavelica.

HUANCAVELICA

Colonial Church in Huancavelica

We almost didn´t make it to Huancavelica. From Huancayo, you can either take a bus or a colectivo (shared car) to Huancavelica. We should have taken the bus. The road between the two cities is paved, which is unusual for the highlands. And apparently not a good thing, because it encouraged our colectivo driver to drive like a maniac and for some reason almost entirely on the wrong side of the road. The road, of course, mainly consisted of blind turns and sheer cliff faces. Towards the end of the trip the driver may or may not have been falling asleep, but I think that was an improvement over his conscious driving skills.

Against all odds, we arrived. Huancavelica was another friendly mountain town, in a valley beneath craggy peaks. We did a nice hike to a mirador on one of the peaks and got a great view of the place. There was a big festival going on while we were there, involving a bullfight and the associated drinking. We didn´t attend the bullfights because we heard that they kill the bull at the end, but we did check out the festival grounds. We also wandered a lot, taking in the colonial churches, hot sun, and cold nights.

At this point we bravely decided to continue on to Ayacucho and eventually to Cusco, even though there is no direct bus service between Ayacucho and Huancavelica. We had to get to the small town of Lircay, from where we could catch a colectivo to Julcamarca, from where we could take a minibus to Ayacucho.

Our attempt to take a colectivo to Lircay got shut down by the police for unclear reasons, so we took a bus. However 15 minutes into the bus ride we came upon a semitruck that had gotten stuck on the road. It wasn´t going anywhere, and since there was no room to pass, neither were we. Impressively, our bus was able to turn around on the narrow road ( we all got off for safety´s sake) and we were able to take another (longer) route.

Kurt tried really hard with this kid.

After spending the night in Lircay the rest of the trip went more or less how it was supposed to. The scenery was terrific- we saw alpacas, llamas, and even their wild relatives, vicuñas!

AYACUCHO

Ayacucho was both the most colonial and modern of the highland towns we visited. It´s known for its 30 plus churches, and for being the center of activity of the Sendero Luminoso terrorist group during the 80´s and 90´s. Considering the recent history of the place (thousands of local people were killed or disappeared during this time period, by both the terrorists and the national army) it´s amazing how welcoming and modern Ayacucho is.

It´s a really nice place to be- lots of food options, big plazas, and all the handicrafts you could ever hope to buy. We spent some time at crafts markets and visiting a small museum about local history, but mostly just walked around and took in the sights.


Our time in the central highlands was nice and relaxing (except for the complete lack of hot showers) - we enjoyed the scenery, the friendly people, and most of all, the lack of other tourists. However all that was about to change, as we left Ayacucho and headed out for the Gringo capital of South America, Cusco.