Jesus! The bulls are coming!

Traditional Dress in Ayacucho

Easter weekend was my first official vacation as a PCV in Peru. Some friends and I ventured a half dozen hours in to the Andes to the increasingly popular city of Ayacucho. The city's 40+ churches make it an exciting place to be during Semana Santa (Holy Week). Processions, fireworks, bullfights, drinking. Only in Ayacucho can one find so many ways to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus. People from all over Peru wanted to be part of the celebration, but few were willing to take the long and dangerous trip over rocky, cliff-hugging roads. Just in the last few years, when a new highway replaced the old roads and the 20 hr trip became a 6 hr one, did tourists start coming in troves.

Last week, I joined the gringo migration.

Trying the local alcohol, called Cañazo

Everyone tries to sleep on the overnight bus (with semi- to fully-reclining bed-seats), but few sleep well. They'd paved the bumps out of the road, but there was no getting rid of the twists and turns. Just when you start dozing off, the bus zips around a hair-pin turn and your body flies to the right and the left and the right. Now imagine trying to use the bathroom.

Me and Vivaan at Ayacucho overlook

Once we got there, life was good. Lounging on Thursday, after the previous night's bus ride. Full-day tour during the day on Friday, including my first time riding a horse (he was a bit small, but wily), my first time eating guinea pig (see below), and some fun under a waterfall. That night we had some pizza (good, for Perú), drinks, and dancing to celebrate my friend Vivaan's birthday.

Thirsty

Hungry

And then came Saturday.

Slow to wake-up from the previous night's festivities, we went in search for breakfast. Instead we found a bull run. They sent five through, one at a time, and we promptly joined. Below is a short video of the first one, at the starting point. Awesome.





Later in the day we went to the bull fight(s). Three bulls. Three deaths. Pretty gruesome stuff.


To cap off the weekend, Ayacucho put on a procession at 4 AM on Easter morning. Fireworks were set off from 4 until sunrise, when 50+ people carried a huge Jesus out of the church and into the town's main square. Crowd was an interesting mix of locals and tourists, drunks and Christians, old and young.

Kaboom!