Lircay and the End of Huancavelica

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Hey Everyone,
I am back in Lima after my month stay in Huancavelica. I will tell you about the bus ride back first because it was pretty interesting. I got on the bus in Huancavelica at 8pm Sunday night. It has been raining a lot up there so there are a lot of rock slides. The bus was pretty nice with reclining seats and a bathroom. We were on the road for about 2 hours when I woke up and we were stopped at a rock slide. We had been stopped for about a half hour and got going again after about another half hour, then a little later at about 1130 I woke up again and we were stopped again. This time everything was quiet, the bus was off, and everyone was sleeping. I guess we were at a rock slide and had to stop for the night. Since it is Peru, no one told us though. Luckily I am pretty accustomed to this kinda thing by now and I went back to sleep off and on until about 5 when the bus started up again. We got moving again at 6, the time we were supposed to arrive in Lima. By the way, the whole time I was with an Irish lady that had come up to Huancavelica for a couple days. We went for another 2 or 3 hours when we were stopped again. This time a beer truck had crashed on a tight curve so it was very difficult to get by. This took another hour out of our time and was also very sad. There were broken beer bottles all over. After this we had no major problems for a while. We stopped for lunch about 1230 where I was approached by a Johavah's witness and had a conversation about the existence of God. She kindly gave me 2 Jehovah's witness magazines. Thanks a lot. (Side note: I am not religious, but I have no problem with religion, evidenced by the fact that I spent a month with Catholic priests, but when someone tries to convert me I get a little annoyed, especially when they use terrible arguments, like the way sharks' skin is proves creation of evolution, one of the fascinating stories in one of the magazines.) Well anyway it did give me some more time to practice my Spanish. After lunch we started climbing the last big pass to Lima, which goes up to about 4800 meters or 16000 feet. I figured we had about 2 hours left, but we asked the guy and he said it was 4. Kinda disappointing. When we got almost to the top of the pass, we stopped again. This time there was something wrong with the bus. Amazingly Peruvian bus drivers are able to fix problems like these by banging stuff with rocks and screwing things with pieces of wire they find on the ground, and we were back on the road within half an hour. We cruised from there and finally got to Lima at 5, 11 hours late and right at rush hour. I got home at 6, 22 hours after we left Huancavelica.

My trip to Huancavelica was great. Since my last entry I went to Lircay, a small town about two hours from Huancavelica. I liked this place a lot. It was at lower altitude so the weather was a little better. In Lircay, I stayed with a couple other priest, one who is learning English, so I we practiced English some, but I still had a lot of time to practice my Spanish. We visited a lot of little towns in the mountains where the priests gave masses. While they gave masses I explored the towns and mountains. These places were pretty incredible. Many of the places didn't have water or electricity and a lot of people spoke only Quechua and not Spanish. In Lircay, I also went fishing- didn't catch anything-, hiked around a little, went to the market on Sunday, and played some soccer. When I went to the market on Sunday everyone was so interested in me as a foreigner. everyone would stare at me and wanted to talk to me. I felt like a celebrity. The last couple days in Lircay, I helped with a tombola, which is a fundraiser where they sold used clothes like a thrift store, to raise money to repair the church. I also ate cuy again and decided that the taste is pretty good, but it is still weird to eat. There are so many little bones. I ate the tongue this time though. Tasted just like the rest.

I spent a week and a half in Lircay. I got back to Huancavelica late Sunday, a week before I was scheduled to go back to Lima. This week they had a one-week preparation class for the kids at the seminary, so I actually taught some English for an hour a day. This week it was really rainy so I couldn't do much and gt kinda bored. I finished all the books I had brought with me. It was still nice to just relax though. On Friday, a piano teacher from Ireland came to visit for a couple days and teach some lessons. She didn't speak Spanish so I was her translator while she was there. It was kinda fun, especially because I had nothing else to do, and I gained a lot of confidence with my Spanish because I was able to do it pretty well. Anyway, we hung out for a couple more days. She taught some piano lessons to the kids which kinda made me want to learn piano. Then we left on Sunday night to start our bus adventure.

Overall my trip to Huancavelica was great. I had a great experience living with the priests and got to visit some places that not many people get to go. The mountains are incredible. I also got a lot of time to rest and relax and saved a lot of money. I hardly spent anything. They gave me all my meals and my room. I am very grateful for the opportunity that they gave me and made some great friends with the priests. I never thought that would happen.

I will write another blog soon with some updates about my situation in Lima. I hope everyone is doing well. As always let me know if you want to come visit. I am planning to go to Machu Pichu and the Amazon sometime this year and would love it if someone came with me.

Talk to you all soon,
Farley

Sorry this took so long. There were problems uploading pictures.

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Photos

Mountains
On the way to Lircay

By the River
People live in these houses.

Trout Farm
This kid is in charge of this trout farm.

Kid
This kid was a little devil. He threw rocks at me.

Comments

[chelsey]

dog peeing
dude... best pictures ever... and shark skin?! totally legit... jk of course. I love how many pictures of llamas you have and you actually got to speak with some people who speak Quechua! that's so damn cool!!! miss you pants!! lemme know when you get an address set up!!