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Published: January 17th 2010
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Cave
The cave where the oldest Peruvian human remains were found Sundays on the project were free days and as we spent all week in Ayacucho, Ai and I decided that it would be good to spend our Sundays exploring the surrounding countryside and towns.
On the first Sunday we took a collectivo - a shared car with 12 people in 5 seats - up to a small town called Quinua in the province of Huamanga, where we walked to the site of the 1824 Battle of Ayacucho. The Battle of Ayacucho was a decisive military encounter during the Peruvian War of Independence. It was the battle that sealed the independence of Peru, as well as the victory that ensured independence for the rest of South America. Its therefore pretty important in Peru's history but as its a tiny town in the middle of the Andes very few visitors to Peru make it here. That was pretty clear when we descended from the Obelisk marking the site to the small town, where tourists clearly weren't seen often and we were given quite a welcome!
There was a small market taking place in the town and it was interesting to see the difference compared with Ayacucho, just an hour away. People
Avacado
Out of season but plenty of them! had very little to sell, just the left overs they could manage without. One of the photos shows this, with a woman selling just a couple of potatoes, some carrots and a lamb skin. Everyone here wore the typical Andean dress too which is extremely warm looking and very colourful.
We then got a car to Wari - a place which is the site of 5 different Wari ruins. The Wari were a civilization that flourished in the Peruvian Andes from about A.D. 500 to 900. The ruins weren't well preserved and have been overgrown by a huge cactus jungle, which was impressive to see in its own right.
To get back to Ayacucho we took a local minibus... quite an experience! We were stopped by the Policia, (they stop all shared vehicles to check drivers licenses, if the driver doesn't have one he bribes the police and you go on your way) and the bus stalled. The police then had to bump start us, which was quite funny!
On our second Sunday we joined Joel, our friend who works in the orphanage, and one of his friends on a trip to Huanta. Huanta is the second
largest city in the department of Ayacucho, and we took another collectivo to get there. We had thought the cars to Quinua were overfull, but they were nothing compared to this! We were squeezed in like sardines, but the police only worry about the front passenger wearing a seatbelt, not how many passengers there are!!
Huanta is an avocado producing region and Joel was on a mission to get fresh avocado for Ai and me. He tried everywhere, and it didn't matter how many people told him it was too early in the season, he wouldn't have it. So we walked through three villages looking for avocados that were ripe, until eventually a really nice woman took pity on us and took us into her orchard where she showed us how to collect tuna fruit, the fruit of the cactus, and to peel them and eat them without getting hurt. After eating tonnes, and gratefully taking a huge bag full she offered us, Joel gave up on the quest for avacados and we went back into Huanta. When we got there we went the market which was utterly enormous - and mainly filled with avocados! Poor Joel looked really
dismayed!
On the way back from Huanta we passed the Pikimachay cave, an archeological site in the Ayacucho valley dated to around 20,000 BCE, and the place where the earliest evidence of human habitation in Peru was found.
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