Ayacucho. Take 2.

Finally, here is my blog about Ayacucho over Easter. I guess time flies when you’re thinking about having fun but living in Lima?

Well, on April 8th the roommates and I ventured to on an 11 hour bus-ride to Ayacucho. The only plans we made ahead of time were…oh that’s right, the bus ticket. Not knowing what we were going to be doing or where we were staying, we arrived in Ayacucho. There we met 3 Peruvians from the PUCP who offered to put us up in an elementary school for free only 5 minutes from the plaza. Maybe the three nicest guys we’ve met in Peru thus far.

Now for the highlights since this could get lengthy otherwise….

Intro to Ayacucho:
--There are 33 main churches in this town, one for each year of Jesus's life.
--It is the second biggest celebration in the world only after the one in Spain.

So a big deal, right? Yeah, it is. Come along with me and I’ll tell you more.

To start our adventure, we went to two different ferias. These are basically like fairs in the US with lots of food, games, selling of hand-made crafts, and animal slaughtering. The usual. Actually, this was the first time I’ve seen a live animal slaughtered with such indifference only feet from a Ferris wheel. Thanks Peru for that image.

Next, we move on to the procession. To start this joyous occasion they make “carpets” out of ground-up flower petals on the road surrounding the sidewalk. See beautiful image below.


Then, from a church just blocks from the plaza starts the procession of a porcelain Jesus in a glass box. Everyone brings candles, it’s special.Next day, we find ourselves at the Pascuatoro which is Ayacucho’s version of running of the bulls in which a large crowd (wearing matching red t-shirts) chases a series a bulls to the plaza. In the plaza you will find the streets crowded with people just looking to have a good time. They’re building human pyramids, drinking Heineken (I know, I like their style too!) and chanting for people in the balconies above to throw water or beer on them. Note they did. The initial entrance to the plaza area resembles that of Camp Randall and the dancing, singing, drunks wearing red made me feel at home. Pure magic.

Now because we‘re rock stars, we remained in the plaza all day and night to wait for the last procession in the wee hours of the morning. While we waited until 6am in the freezing cold rain, there were fireworks on towers of bamboo. While I’m sure this would not be all fine and dandy in the States, people crowded around the exploding towers and danced and chanted merrily like any good Christian waiting for Jesus to rise again should. After the amazing show of fireworks, the towers are taken down in record time and bonfires are made in the streets. Around daybreak in the pouring rain, we huddled together to watch 300 men carrying the biggest pyramid of candles you have ever seen. With Jesus on top, they proceed around the plaza and back to the church. So worth every moment of hypothermia.