Hello everyone:
I decided to do a little update because so much has gone on with us over the last week. If you’ve read Jess` last posting, you’ll know all about the little orphanage we visited in Zapallal. I’ve been a little preoccupied with writing about the amazing story of the orphanage’s founder since we left there. However, it’s hard to write when traveling, especially when everyday seems to bring new, exciting experiences (and I’m usually really pooped out by 8 o’clock every evening). Hopefully I’ll get a few days to really get something good done soon.
In the meantime, we’ve been having a great time in the highlands. We’re in Huancayo at the moment, taking in the Fiestas Patrias (Peru’s Independence) celebrations. The bus ride from Lima took about 9 hours, reaching altitudes of 4700 metres before arriving in the Mantaro Valley, a “comfortable” yet breathtaking 3250m.
As luck would have it, we arrived in Huancayo just in time for the Santiago celebrations, a big party in the name of the animals that sustain Huancayo`s agricultural-rooted majority. Every year, indigenous communities from all around Huancayo come to the city wearing their traditional clothing. They march through the streets, accompanied by bands, comprised of saxophonists and drummers cranking out the four-bar refrain particular of their respective communities, while the women dance along the streets, screaming “ha, ha hay, ha, ha hay!” They also set off fireworks from the middle of the crowd and run around the crowd with a model bull, shooting fireworks on everyone and no doubt burning people in the process.
We followed the marching bands to a plaza on Av. Real, where a huge mass of people was gathering. At this point the individual bands took the stage, one at a time, while men, women, and children hurried about selling calientito, the local hot, alcoholic brew. Before long, a woman approached us and offered us some. We’re such gringos! When she asked us for 2 soles (60 cents), we thought it was for the two shots of calientito we had. Nope, it was for the bottle. We didn’t plan on it, but we got a little tipsy with a friendly local veterinarian and his friends and danced with the locals. One nice thing about the Peruvian highlands is that there are few tourists – you can count them on your two hands.
The next morning, after our new Peruvian “friends” ditched us (they offered to pick us up to go for breakfast at their farm but didn’t show up), we headed to the famous Sunday Market in Huancayo. Seeing as we have a bit of money at this point of the trip, we shopped and shopped, resolving to send a package home from Huancayo full of beautiful weavings, trinkets, and of course alpaca wool (over 1 kilo!).
The next day, we decided to take a touristy tour – a change since we’ve been restricting ourselves to the shockingly cheap local transportation. We went to various small towns in the area, which each seem to specialize in either weaving, jewelry, or agricultural production. We ate lunch at a trout farm (delicious), where Jess made some friends who offered to take her for a horse ride before charging her 2 soles once she had mounted the horse.
All in all, we’ve had a great time. I’ve learned so much about Peru, having the linguistic abilities to actually talk to people about more than “how much,” “no gracias,” and so on. I’ve also been reading a lot about the Shining Path insurgency of the 1980s and 90s and the Peruvian Communist Party, whose vicious terror campaign arguably destroyed daily live for the campesinos of rural Peru in a more profound way than even the Spanish conquistadors had. In fact, Shining Path killed less government forces than campesinos (both innocent and corrupt)– the very people they were claiming to liberate.
Talking with the old lady who owns our hostel, I’ve been able to hear stories of what Huancayo was like from the 1940s, when she and her late husband left their land to come to the city, to the 60s and 70s, when her own parents were left poor by the then military government’s agrarian reforms, to the 80s and 90s rule of the Shining Path compounded by police and military oppression. In fact, with everyone I’ve spoken with so far, there seems to be one certainty: the power of memory. I`ve also found that people tend to judge a government´s competency by their memories of what it was like for them at that time.
I read in El Correo last week that the Shining Path has claimed to have liberated several small towns in the Upper Huallaga Valley, a major coca-producing region. Whether this is de-facto power due to the inability of Peru’s national government to see outside of Lima or a genuine resurgence in guerrilla activity in the area remains to be seen.
We’ll be getting a night bus from Huancayo on the 29th, so we’re going to be in Ayacucho by the 30th. Oh, and it`s hot and sunny in the day but freezing at night. But such beautiful stars!
I’ll write some more from Ayacucho, so take care, everyone!
Oh! Check out the pictures from Huancayo and some new black and whites Jess has posted from Zapallal!
|  | 
|
