Ayacucho central market

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Today we found out a bit about how things are going to work while we are here in Ayacucho. Breakfast, or desayuno, is made each morning at about 8 by our host Lorena, and lunch is at 1pm in the casa familia accross the road. The casa familia isn´t a restaurant as you have to be invited to eat there, although the host is paid, in our case in advance by Lorena from our placement fee.

In Peru, the desayuno is the biggest and most important meal, followed by a three course lunch and a small evening meal at about 8pm - the opposite to at home. Lunch most days is a sopa de pollo, (chicken soup), followed by either chicken or another meat with rice and some stewed veg, and finally a glass of luke warm fresh fruit juice, usually either manzana (apple) or chicha morada which is a favourite drink in Peru and is made from purple coloured corn.

For our evening meal we have 10soles a day between the two of us, the equivalent of 2 pounds, and we have to buy and cook our own meal. This is just enough for a set menu each in a restaurant if we eat the very basic food and in the very dodgyest places, so it was clear we needed to get to grips with the very busy, very daunting, very crazy local market.

The market is an experience all on its own. It covers a whole block, and is sort of divided into fruit, veg, meat, and non food but actually there are bits all over the place so you have to hunt for what you want. It is amazingly cheap, we got a kilo of pumpkin cut from the whole fruit, some chilli, loads of rice, some onions and some garlic for 3 soles in total and it fed us for two evenings! So 10soles actually works out as quite a lot of money and we are using the leftover to buy materials to use with the kids in the orphanage.

We also found a rather cool witch doctor in the market, he had a bucket of frogs which promised all sorts of medical treatments, from cures for bronchial asthma through to improved vision and help for epilepsy and fainting! We declined his offer of help for Ai´s bad stomach, she looked quite scared at the thought of drinking blended toad!

We went back to the market in the evening after the sun set as we wanted one or two extra items, and found that the stalls all had candles lit so you could just about see the stall holders face. It was really surreal and quite beautiful, although they definetely made the most of the reduced light to give you the most bruised fruit!

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Photos

Entering the market
Ladies in local dress

Pollo?
Chicken stall selling dead and alive birds

Cuy
Cuy, or guinea pigs, awaiting their fate

Market by candlelight
With stall holder in typical dress