Huanta

Yesterday, we went on a day-trip to the town of Huanta. The oldest kids at the school, who are mostly around 14 years old, sold waffles every Sunday for a few months, and they made a lot of money to fund a trip for them. And, they invited me and mom along! So, they rented a van, and we loaded up around eight yesterday morning and set off on a great adventure! In very non-US fashion, we stopped about a million times along the way. They were all cool stops, and I enjoyed them, but it was still rough for my little plan-loving head. Anyway, the first stop was at this place call Pikimachay (sp? It's in Quechua, the native language here, and I am just hopeless at sounding that stuff out). That place though is a cave where they found the oldest human remains in the Americas. Pretty neat. Here's a picture of me at the base of the climb up (the Andes are neat, huh?), and here's GeGe getting near the top!

Then, our next stop was to look at this big, white, Jesus statue that was made to replace a statue of a president who turned out to be super corrupt. Then, we stopped to look at this Incan bridge. The place is called something in Quechua that means "dead hanging" and sounds like ayawacuna. The Incans use to hang the bodies of the people who they defeated in war there. Interesting history!

A little up the river from that bridge is a place where a lot of bodies were left during the Shining Path years. For those of you who don't know, Shining Path was a rebel group that started in Ayacucho a few decades ago, and there was a pretty intense war between the revolutionaries and the existing (corrupt) government. As is often the case in those sorts of things, regular people got stuck in the middle. So, if the revolutionaries came through a town and stole all of their livestock, the military would later come and kill everyone in the town for aiding the Shining Path. The opposite was also true. GeGe told us that the Shining Path didn't really try to hide its killings, while the government did try to cover up its killings of innocent people (since, you know, the government is supposed to protect its citizens or something). So, a body-dumping site like this was probably used by the military. Anyway, whenever a body was found (and they continue to be found in some places), people create a little remembrance site. As this is a river, you can't really build anything, so they did engravings instead. There were way too many engravings. Jasson, a teacher at the school who was on the trip and played the part of guide, pointed out one engraving that he said was probably an uncle of his because the name matched. Just about everyone in Ayacucho lost someone (or lots of someones) during the Shining Path years, but most people don't talk about it because it is all so fresh, and I think that there is still some fear of government and Shining Path action. Here's a picture of some of the engravings.

Then, back to the van, and we drove on to our next stopping point, which was an outlook over Huanta. The view was pretty cool, but instead of showing you that, here's a picture of Me, Mom, GeGe, Jasson, and Yamile, and a few of the students (we live with Jasson and Yamile because they school is based out of their house!)

Then, we finally made it to Huanta! The first thing we did was try some Chicha de Sieta Semillas, it's made from seven different grains/beans. I thought that it was okay! Here's a picture of me drinking some! (I also made friends with a kitten at this store. It was the best)

Then, we drove to the central square, where there was a pretty park and a pretty church. A wedding procession went by, that was fun. Here are a few of the kids at the park!

Then, we piled back in the van and drove around for awhile, seeing the sites and trying to figure out where we wanted to get lunch. We eventually ended up back at the square and had lunch at a restaurant right by there. There was a TV in the restaurant, on which was playing Toy Story, so all of the kids were silently entranced throughout the meal. Pretty funny to watch. I also got to try real chicha with lunch, instead of the bottled version, and, I have to say, I might like the bottled version better. The homemade stuff has a much lime-ier flavor, and I don't love lime juice. Anyway, after that, we made our way to the border of town in search of a swimming pool which supposedly existed there. We weren't really seeing any swimming pool, but luckily we stopped to ask at the right place- a little house where they were hiding a swimming pool and a soccer field way in the back. No sign for the pool, just a word of mouth sort of thing, which is normal for Peruvian pools, but I was surprised. The kids all went swimming with a great view of the Andes in the background (see below), then they played some soccer, then they went back in the pool, and then we left!

On the way out of town, we bombarded a store with teenage requests for soda, ice cream, and cookies, but then we were on our way. And! We didn't even stop on the way home. We made it back a little after five, and the kids were reluctant to end their fun day, but they eventually went home. Then, we settled in the for the night, battled with some spiders, had banana waffles for dinner, felt bad for poor sick Gilli, and woke up ready for Sunday puca picante and a little adventure into town! It has definitely been a great weekend! Here are GeGe, Amanda (the one with the awesome prison project), and me with our puca!