Ayacucho - Semana Santa capital of Peru

This year for Semana Santa I made the trek to the central Andes to the city of Ayacucho. Ayacucho is one of the top destinations for Semana Santa and they are known for their religious activities leading up to Easter. Because Ayacucho is so popular it was a little hard to plan this trip. We arrived in Lima after 17 hours on the bus and then we rushed over to the Ayacucho bus station to catch our bus that left in 15 minutes. Luckily the bus was late so we made it on time and got to enjoy another 9-10 hours on a bus. We arrived in Ayacucho at 11 at night with no place to stay. We headed over to the corner of the plaza and proceeded to call hotel after hotel hoping that one had a vacancy. After a few minutes of awkwardly standing there with our backpacks, a lady came by with a sheet of paper offering rooms in her house. She had a room for tonight and the price was way cheaper than any of the hotels. The house was only a few blocks from the plaza but when we got there they had to kick a sleeping little girl out of the bed that would be our room. Other than that, the room worked out perfectly. It was very comfortable and the family was nice. But after all, we are Peace Corps Volunteers so we are used to roughing it and living with families, so this was no big deal. The rest of the weekend went by smoothly and below you can read about the different events with pictures.

Peru is home to more than 3,000 different varieties of potatoes. All of these plates contain different kinds of potatoes.

I used to despise potatoes. They are now growing on me. There is really no escaping them here in the sierra.

Everyone wanted a picture with the vicuña. The lady wasn't very pleased and told me "no touching!"

One day we went to a feria and proceeded to gorge ourselves on cheese samples, choclo con queso, and look at all the different kinds of food. Here is the smallest variety of avocado next to one of the biggest varieties. I was in palta (avocado) heaven. Who knew there were so many varieties?

Ayacucho is famous for it's religious celebrations. On Friday they reinacted the crucification. It was pretty realistic but I didn't follow the crowd of Romans to actually see the crucification.

We tried to eat Pachamanca whenever we could. They cook everything in a hole in the ground. I really wish they had these in Cajamarca.

They also make these really elaborate rugs on the streets made out of flower and other organic materials.

The artwork and detail is incredible. This is all made out of powder. Too bad it is walked all over and swept up a few hours later.

Plaza de Armas in Ayacucho. Ayacucho is very similar to Cajamarca in terms of size and altitude.

Decked out and waiting for the bulls with other PCVs. This picture also serves a reminder that I'm not the giant that everyone in my town thinks I am.

So we waited all morning to watch the bulls run. Nobody told us that the bulls were on a leash though. Not quite as exciting.

After the bull run everyone piled into the plaza. Saturday is named the day of sin because they believe that it's the one day that Jesus can't judge them.