Saturday, June 28th, 2014

Thoughts on Ayacucho

Wednesday, June 25th, was our first full day in the city of Ayacucho.  We got there the previous night after a 9-hour scenic bus ride through the mountains.  Ayacucho itself is about 2,750 meters above sea level, and has grown very big in the past decade or so with a population of around 300,000.  This might be due to the decline of the El Sendero Luminoso (The Shining Path), a Maoist guerilla insurgence group that began their revolution in Ayacucho in 1980.  They were around for almost 20 years, and effectively isolated Ayacucho from the rest of Peru and the world.  They were also responsible for about half of the deaths and dissapearances during the armed conflict in Peru lasting from 1980-2000.  The isolation wreaked havoc on Ayacucho's economy, but after the disappearance of El Sendero Luminoso, their economy has been growing steadily.  It's pretty neat that we were able to travel through somewhere were no one would have even thought of going 20 years ago.  Perhaps in the future all "forbidden cities" will become open to all.

First thing we did when we arrived was to find a cheap hostel.  Conveniently, all the hostels here advertise their prices on the signs, and most don’t cost more than 20 soles (7 dollars) per person.  We got an all right room for 30 soles a night, with our own private bathroom.  Then, we walked around a bit and found a Chifa, a Peruvian Chinese food restaurant, and got some delicious yet cheap food.  Then we hit an Internet café, watched a movie in our room, and fell asleep.

We awoke Wednesday morning, and made our way down to the Plaza de Armas, or the main square in the city center.  We walked around for a while, soaking in the atmosphere of our most recent destination.  We noticed that Ayacucho is a lot calmer than Lima and the people move around at a slower pace, which we honestly appreciate after spending 3 weeks in the big city.  It also seems more historical and cultural than the sprawling modernity of Lima.  For one, there are many old buildings and churches.  In fact there are 33 colonial churches, one for each year of Jesus' life, including one constructed in 1540! There are also more people here that are dressed in the traditional clothing, usually the elderly farmer type.  The people here are very friendly, although I don’t believe they see many tourists coming through so we’re a bit of an oddity. 

After asking around, we figured out were we could get some good, cheap breakfast.  Then we found a librería and bought 3 books by Gabriel García Márquez: Cien Años de Soledad, El Coronel no tiene quien le escriba, and his autobiography Vivir para Contarla.  We are excitied to get some reading done en Español.  Next, we found a traditional looking woman selling coca leaves as well as stevia, so we decided to pick some up to try it out.  Chewing on the coca leaves gives one a nice alertness, and the stevia tastes like pure sugar.  We walked around some more and encountered some elementary school girls who wanted to interview us Gringos, and take our pictures of course.  Then we came upon a bootlegged movie store and picked up Elysium and Divergent, which we watched that night rather than the crap they put on the television (Although the bootleg quality was pretty bad).  We picked up some maracuya flavored shaved ice and walked back to the Plaza de Armas.  

We were sitting and enjoying our treats when a man selling sunglasses walked up to us.  We quickly declined his offer, but instead of leaving he struck up a conversation with us.  He began by guessing where we were from: First Germany, then France, Canada, then finally the U.S.  He proceeded with the usual questions, like where we were traveling from, how long we were staying, where we were going, what we planned on doing, etc.  He even tried speaking a little English, and asked us to correct his pronunciation.  Then he said that Simon reminded him of Val Kilmer, to which we all laughed about.  After talking with this guy for a while, we learned that his name was Antonio and that he had lived in Cuzco for five years where he met many tourists.  He seemed to have an interest in world politics, and asked us our opinions on big questions such as the conflict in Ukraine or the U.S. detainees in Guantanamo Bay.  We talked for about 45 minutes, than he asked for a picture of “Val Kilmer” and of the both of us.  He showed us a good restaurant to eat at, and even told us that he would take us to a place tomorrow where there may be some potential rock climbing.  It just goes to show, you’ll never know what opportunities you’ll come across once you open up to people.

We spent Thursday and Friday just relaxing.  Honestly, there wasn't much to see or do in Ayacucho, but we were happy for the downtime.  We never got around to climbing with Antonio, but we did buy some sunglasses from him.

Friday night, we boarded our 18 hour bus ride to Cusco after a nice Chifa meal.  The ride was a bit long for our liking, but at least we got to sleep through half of it.  The whole journey was on these insane mountain roads, switching back and forth like a snake winding it's way upwards.  Then we'd head back down into a valley, then along a river, then back up into a mountain, until finally we crossed the Urubamba river and up into the sacred valley of the old Inca capital.  We are very happy to be here, and are spending our day relaxing in a hostel (so much nicer than the one in Ayacucho) and exploring a bit.  We have a very exciting month ahead of us, so check back soon for some more exciting updates!

Chao!