Ayacucho, Peru

Useful advice for fellow travellers:
Don´t eat somewhere unless there are other people eating there, too.

I haven´t had any bad food yet so this isn´t from experience, but it´s a piece of info that, like most advice, is common sense, but is something you might not think about until it´s too late.

I´m in the mountains now! The bus ride here was less than pleasant, but that´s to be expected for a 9.5hr ride on a speeding bus on a winding mountain road. The guy next to me took up too much space, and I made the mistake of choosing an aisle seat instead of a window seat, so I couldn´t rest as well. Anyway, I didn´t get much sleep last night, but I arrived in Ayacucho just before 7am today and went straight to a hotel for a nap.

And what a hotel! I´ve got to say it again. Here is a clip from my journal:

¨So I´ve landed myself in another spectacular hotel in Ayacucho. ... La Colmena Hotel, where I´m staying, is a bright yellow square building with rooms running around an open courtyard in the centre. The little restaurant is on the ground level and, from my seat by the balcony on the second level, I can look down on it. Like Hotel España in Lima, there are plants everywhere, and though I haven´t been able to spot any yet, there are tons of tropical birds making their song all day.¨

So far I haven´t met anybody cuz the hotel is set up differently. There are no dorm rooms so I´m in a single, and I think only I´ve seen about 4 tourists since my arrival. It´s not as well travelled as some of Peru´s other cities. The city itself, though, is beautiful. My journal:

¨Ayacucho is nothing like Lima. It´s open, has blue skies, it´s not as crowded or large, and it feels much safer. I wandered down an old crumbling street, on which there were only a handful of locals, without hesitation. I´ll have to ask if it´s safe at night.

¨In the Plaza de Armas there were hundreds of children from different schools. They had little booths set up all over the place, all having something to do with conservation projects, indigenous culture, local foods, etc. Many of the children looked curiously at me and some smiled, but they are not as bold as those from Lima.

¨There are many indigenous women lining the streets selling fruit and handicrafts. One woman looked just like the bag lady from the movie Labyrinth, with the same wrinkled shrunken face and hunched posture.

¨I tried some ice cream but can´t for the life of me remember the name of the fruit flavour. Starts with ´m´. And I had a ´sandwich de pollo´ at a little diner for S/2 (CA$0.68).¨

My room is actually perfect for writing. It´s simple and has a bed, a writing desk and chair, and shelving with a little TV. There are advantages to having a single room. I don´t have to worry about security as much cuz I can just lock up behind me, and I can do laundry in the bathroom sink and just hang it up around my room.

Time is up so I gotta jet.