Huancayo - Huancavelica

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We left Huancayo by taxi at an all too early hour in the morning - our driver collected us from the hostel as arranged, and as Nico decided to join us on this leg of the journey we unfortunately had to bump another bloke out of the ride - who we later met in Huancavelica, Luke, from the Lonely Planet... top bloke.

The taxi ride was straight forward, we passed massive farming areas and learnt that the locals grow a ridiculous number of potato species, passing security checkpoints was stress-free, the road soon climbed over several passes - and down the other side was possibly the one of the world's most impressive potential Targa stages, I failed to get a photo but imagine about 40 mins of continuous sealed-road hairpins winding down a stunning valley, gold - the only problem was we were in a poor old Corolla wagon on its last legs, hardly Gran Tourismo...

Rightio, so we arrived in Huancavelica at around 10.30am to a festival in full-swing, I suspect 80'% of the population was already drunk, there were bands and groups of locals dancing all through the streets, at one point it took us about 10 mins to break through one of these dances with the taxi in a bid to make it to the hostel - oh, and this hostel was a baaad choice, being basically the first one we selected out of the Lonely Planet, and the fact that the city was effectively quite difficult to search at this point - it was like a prison, built entirely of cement it was cold, musty and generally filthy... but as we were here to get amongst the festivities with the locals our time in the hostel was thankfully minimal.

We dumped the bags and the four of us set off to the heart of the action and were soon greeted with beer, invitations to dance, and chiiiiicha - a fermented corn drink which is apparently made using the saliva that old women spit into a vat whilst chewing corn, this is used to react with the sugar etc used to create this alcoholic wonder - kind of gross huh? Well, it's rude to refuse an offering of food or drink so when Jess refused the offer of a cup of freeesh chiiiiicha scooped into a plastic cup out of a huge bin by an elderly woman with three teeth - I gratefully accepted the kind gesture, and headed straight for the bin....

I soon found myself with a longneck in-hand, having a memorable conversation in 'fluent' Spanish with a local that could barely walk, let alone talk. Then Luke turned up, he made it! We shared a beer then set off in search of the next inebriated congregation, this didn't take long. Peruvians sure know how to party, they enjoy festivals for something like 4 months of the year to celebrate - I think they even throw a festival to celebrate the number of festivals they have... any excuse really...

Much like Huancayo, we are constantly stared at like freaks, we haven't seen many other tourists at all here either, which is half the reason why we chose this route to get to Cusco - avoiding the touristy places and getting amongst the locals - but you do get tired of the attention. For example, we went to a 'Chinese' restaurant for dinner one night here and upon leaving Jess was set upon by a local that insisted she have her photo taken with a gringo, so Jess got a photo with her too, a bit weird - but you will also find that people, kids especially, will stop walking, eating, playing etc. and simply look at you as you walk by... But don't get us wrong, the people we have met are extremely friendly and are surprisingly patient with our lack of Spanish, they are keen to learn where we are from etc. and are more than willing to help with info, directions and anything else we can successfully ask for.

That night we went and checked out the crescendo of this current festival, they had a massive stage set up with local bands and traditional music, the volume of which was insane, the four of us moved through the crowd to get closer to the stage and get amongst the dancing locals - and being seemingly the only tourists in town we found it hard not to be noticed up near the stage, we stood about a foot taller than the sea of locals - well, except for Jess... Amongst the many food stalls are an even higher number of calientito sellers - calientito being I think the general name given to any warm alcoholic drink - in this case a couple of shots of white rum is mixed with hot water, honey and fresh lime juice in a bottle, you pay 6 soles for this warm delight and return the bottle when done, not the most hygenic method of consumption - but when in Rome...

We were befriended by a few rather inebriated older gents in front of a stack of speakers at the stage, we got a couple more bottles of calientito to share whilst enjoying the concert and trying to converse in broken Spanish with them - one of them was chatting to Jess, screaming Spanish slurry in her poor sore ear, the guy was a champion but didn't realise he was practically deafening her... good times. Moving away from the insane volume, we headed over to the fireworks display being primed - we're talking about bamboo frames up to 6-8m tall held together with twine and laced with kilos of handmade fireworks/explosives. These constructions were incredible, perfectly balanced, and the many displays would fire without a hitch - well, as would be expected with handmade crackers some would be unpredicatble, often a rocket would take flight only to explode just meters above the crowd, spraying everyone with sparks and flaming debris - you really need to be on the ball, we were standing there with our calientitos critiquing a display that just went off when a string of fireworks hanging a few feet from us was lit and nearly took us out. Again, when it comes to safety it's every man for himself, it is all too easy to cop a spray from a rocket wheel in the face or be deafened by misfiring rockets - see the photos, they don't really do it justice however...

The power cut out and everything went black, then yet another tower of fireworks started blasting away, providing enough light to make our way through the crowd in an attempt to exit the madness and head back to the prison, I mean hostel...

Rightio, so the next morning we went to check out some bull fighting on the upper side of the city, there was a small stadium at the foot of incredibly steep surrounding hills which were terraced for hundreds of onlookers to stand a safe distance from the bulls. Before entering the stadium for the actual bull fight later in the day, the bulls were led by horseman into the outer-stadium area where hundreds of crazy locals waited, most of them wearing at least one red item, waiting to taunt the poor bulls. Again, there were crates of beer being carted up the terraces on horseback, one bloke was even passed out amongst the bull madness below (pic), he later woke and went about his business completely oblivious to the fact that bulls had been trampling around him... gold. See the pics for this - at one point a bull chased a bunch of blokes towards the stadium wall, many got out of the way but one kid tripped just at the wall and fell in front of the oncoming beast, the bull took aim and scooped its head - missing the kids head by inches, so so lucky...

So after a couple of days sampling the local food and festivities in Huancavelica we pushed on to Ayacucho, the last stop before arriving in Cusco. Not much to report on Ayacucho really, we stayed a couple of nights and I managed to get gastro on the way there so my memory of the place isn´t too flash... Travelling here consisted of a chain of taxis and vans, the most memorable being a particular taxi - the driver must have been in his late teens, the car seats 5 'legally', being the biggest ugly gringo I got to sit in the front, the car was full and we set off only to stop twice over a few blocks to collect another 3 adults and 2 children, so there was now two in the front, four on the back seat, and three in the boot along with the spare tyre and all the luggage for everyone - this car was fully laden... the road soon turned into loose gravel along cliffs and the car would be skating into corners under brakes, I can´t believe we didn't go off... The next leg of the day-long journey to Ayacucho involved a van, not a minibus, a van with 22 people including the driver crammed inside, with all the luggage strapped to the roof, these guys are mental! But it works, everyone gets to where they´re going, and in one piece - well, most of the time, we heard about a bus that went over near Huancayo I think, 6 people died.

In brief, Ayacucho is a much wealthier city, very pretty, far less staring here as it's more touristy, we met another Italian on the way to see the Obelisk at Pampa de la Quinua and ended up going horse riding with him, aaaand thats about it.

Up next - Cusco and the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu.

Hasta luego chicos 😉

Sam & Jess

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