Saturday - We left the house at 7a.m. with the van loaded up with bread and goodies for the villagers up in the hills. A wonderfully scenic drive into the mountains passing a small village where the Sendaro Luminoso had raped all the girls and then shot all the guests of an engagement party because the celebrations were going on after 8p.m. One girl survived to tell the tale. The horrors of this time have been described to us - something like 60,000 people killed in the Ayacucho region and many thousands more just 'disappeared'. We stopped at the first village and were greeted by women who make those funny peruvian hats with pigtails. The children all pop out from behind their mother's skirts, of which there are many – sometimes up to five or six big, gathered skirts of different colours - and eventually their shyness goes when they see the sweeties and bread. There are masses of dogs around but as you can see from the photos, they look after them very well. Following on from this village we then went to another one further up the mountain - much bigger than the first one but still incredibly basic. The women sit around chatting, cooking, looking after the children and spinning alpaca wool while the men are out working. Here we distributed our bread and pens and paper to all the lovely little children and their mothers - although they have schools, there are few if any resources.
Ladies spinning alpaca wool while getting on with life
A little alpaca coat
Village children
A young Cechuan girl
We left on foot from this village to start our 3 hour trek up the mountain to reach a wonderful lake where we took our lunch. The views were amazing as we were completely surrounded by mountains with snow capped peaks in the distance On the way we passed waterfalls, llamas, alpacas and the tree line. We were given mate de coca which is a tea made with coca leaves that help with altitude ailments and when the going got really tough as we reached the highest point of 15,600ft. we also chewed the leaves – quite disgusting and I decided I preferred to put up with a slight headache and not being able to breath! The weather was lovely although quite chilly at the top. All the people we meet during our travels speak Cechuan which is the language that the last Incan king demanded that everyone spoke. Most also speak a form of Spanish but not all of them.
Beautiful Andean scenery during our trek
Setting off on our trek
Getting higher
and higher [sorry I lost her ears]
Mate de coca - yuk - we needed it
Me with Karen and Millie - the straglers but nearly there
Sunday – Today, four of us took a guided tour to another area north of Huamunga [the local name for Ayacucho] to visit a cave that was inhabited by the first man to live in Peru in 12,000 BC. Bones and remains of animals – tigers, 5mtr high bears, foxes – have been found in and around the cave and it is now believed by the locals to be the home of mountain spirits.
Entrance to the cueva above my head
Inside the cave - there are separate areas for sleeping, living and praying
A welcome rest in the cool
After the caves we visited a small town where the weekly bata market was taking place. No-one deals in money, just swapping one item for anothr that is needed.
Flowers in the hat show that she is single
hi
ReplyDeleteSorry - that was just me (Hannah) trying to work out how to sent a comment! I love the little dog with his alpaca jumper!
ReplyDeleteI can't work out how not to be anonymous!
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