Quinoa and the Wari Ruins

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An hour bus ride through the mountains took us to Quinoa, altitude 10,000 ft. The bus ride was an experience. There are no real lanes on any of the streets and people pass whenever they please. The hour bus ride was spent with a rock wall to one side and a cliff on the other. Cars and buses here are all manual so the ride is always stop and go. There is also no air conditioning and the windows need to stay shut because of the dust, needless to say car sickness is pretty common. Luckily the ride was short and the roads were paved for the most part. The scenery was unbelievalbe though and the hour went fast.

We arrived at the Ayacucho monument around 2:30. The monument sits a top a mountain in a field. It was built in memory of the last battle between the peruvians and the spanish where the peruvians won their independence. From the monument we walked down into the village of Quinoa. The village is known for its beautiful ceramics. Each building has a ceramic church perched on the roof for good luck. The entire place is beautiful and I would love to live there for a while. All of the buildings are white washed with tile roofs. Villagers dried corn and beans along the sides of the cobblestone streets. Be prepared for ceramic gifts when I get home because we all left with full bags wondering what clothes we brought that we can leave here to make room for everything. Either that or where we can buy a new bag to bring home. I plan on leaving here with only the clothes in my backpack.

Another amazing thing about the village was the community. When we turned the corner of the plaza the streets were full of villagers and bamboo rods. They were repairing the roof of the church. The women would husk the outside of the bamboo shoots creating huge piles of clean bamboo, husks and just cut bamboo. The men dug up mud from beside the church and then used buckets and a pully system to bring the mud to the roof. They would use the mud as adhesive for the bamboo. Once the bamboo was in place they would begin to tile over it. It was really fun to watch and all of the villagers were eager to let us watch and even help. I opted out of the offer to shovel mud, I think they were just teasing me anyway.

After we left Quinoa we got back in the van and drove to the wari ruins. The wari civilization is a pre-incan civilization that dates back to about 1500 years ago. The ruins we saw were remenents of a temple, houses and tombs. There was a museum filled with artifacts, mostly pottery. They pottery was beautifully decorated with influence from the nazca empire. It made me a little sad that I won't be able to visit the Nazca Lines while I am here, maybe next time. The Wari people also used wood to flatten and extend their skulls so we saw some skulls that were very oddly proportioned. The ruins were very interesting but made difficult with the mass amount of bugs that were all over the fields at sunset and the herds of goats that were everywhere. Once again though, the view was beautiful.

All in all it was an amazing afternoon and we are returning today to hike through the mountains to a waterfall. It will be good to get out of the city for the day.

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Photos

friends and monument
friends: katie, jenny, cara, thaya, me, erik, pooja, angela

walking to the bathroom
50 centimos to use the hut

Quinoa
look at the churches on the roofs

Comments

[Lisa]

Did I see this photo in National Geographic?
I swear you stole this photo from an online source for National Geo. You're really in Vegas blowing all of mom and dad's money on slot machines and an Elvis wedding aren't you? ;-)