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Yesterday, we went to a village 52 km away from Ayacucho to see the delights the fayre,'Senor de Maynay' had to offer. Once again we embarked in our small van for a 1 hour journey. I'm becoming quite accustomed to these trecherous roads where a couple of inches to the left on the right would send you tumbling down steep mountain hills, with, i'm sure, little if any chance of survival! It's a good thing Alexhandro is such a brilliant driver. I've name him the Godfather II. He and his son Jason were the best hosts and made sure that we got the most out of the trip.
The fayre in Huanta was ok I guess. Lots of vegetables, food stuffs, heat and mosquitos. Wreched things, but the deet lotion seems to be working a treat currently. We had some typical Peruvian food at lunch. Soup, segundo (main course) and Chicha (a drink made from cereal corn, sugar and water. Sweet and wine coloured!) all for 7 Soles. That's dirt cheap!
Afterwards, we weren't feeling much like going back to the fayre. The vegetables were nice to look at but there wasn't much else happening. So Alexhandro and Jason took us to a lovely little waterfall spot about a 10 minute drive away. It was beautiful, hot and relaxing. Earlier that day, they had shown us a site along the route from Ayacucho to Huanta where many peoples bodies were hung after they were captured, tortured and slaughtered during the civil war and the shinning path reign. That was moving, and there are still shrines and names carved onto the walls where these people hung. They told us that during this time, families would go down to this area in search of other family memebers that had gone missing as it was a common spot for the military or shinning path memebers to hang the bodies of their victims. However, because of the fear during this time, people were too scared to retrieve there loved ones bodies and so they would have to just leave them there, hanging or to be eaten by dogs. It's so sad what happened here only within the last 30 years and it's sad that this was not well publised in the media and we were ignorant of these going ons. There are constant reminders of the atrocities here in Ayacuhco and just hearing the real life stories from Marisol is touching in such a way I can't explain. Ayacucho is such a moving place in everyway, culture, people, food, weather, biodiversity, I feel blessed to be here.
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