each time i sit down to write one of these i realise that there is -far- too much to write about sufficiently. i guess i´ll start where i left off [palm sunday] and fill you in on all the adventures [some more welcome than others] that have occurred since then.

not being the World's Best Christians, harry and i arrived in a little, un-touristy andean town on palm sunday with absolutely no knowledge that it was, in fact, palm sunday. it was completely by luck, then, that we stumbled across families, groups of friends, and co-workers constructing incredible images on the road, using only petals, berries, and other natural materials. it transpired that all of this was done in order to pave the way for the morning procession, which came complete with a model of christ riding a donkey, a priest who stopped the procession intermittently to pray into a megaphone and throw holy water upon the adoring crowd, choir boys who attempted to lead the odd strains of song that occurred, and young peruvian girls dressed as angels [one of whom insisted, quite un-angelically, on picking her nose throughout the procession.] and all of this motley crew went along the road, destroying all of these incredibly intricate images that people had been working on since 5 in the morning. the clean-up efforts that followed the procession [men with brooms creating piles of petals that were quickly transferred into a rubbish truck] was one of the most effective things we've seen in peru to date. clearly everyone takes easter very seriously.

huancavelica ostensibly had very little to offer, other than its palm sunday celebrations, but harry and i were endeared to it because it just seemed so peruvian. everybody seemed to know who we were, because we stuck out so much amidst all the locals, and more than a few times a day an old lady would look at us in amazement, say ¨gringa¨ and try to touch our hair. plus, our hostel and food was ridiculously cheap..it was as if the people of the town hadn´t quite cottoned on to tourism yet. anyway from this lovely place we went on to huancayo, a bigger town with not that much more to offer, other than the wonderful fact that it abbreviates its possessive name to "huanca", and often spells it " w***a". needless to say, spectacularly funny for a couple of english girls. on the first day we planned to do the things that the guidebook told us to do in the " w***a" area, so in the morning we hiked up to some ancient sandstone pillars [subsequently getting stuck in a hailstorm, losing the trail back to the town, and getting completely covered in mud], and, after a bit of a dry-off at the hostel, started our wander to a park we'd been told about, famous for its bizarre kitschness. unfortunately, we never made it to the kitsch park that day, as during our walk harriet was bitten by a horrible, huge, and angry dog. and so started Harry and Suzie's Battle Against Rabies. [please note now that harriet is absolutely fine, and rabies-free, so DO NOT WORRY!] the Battle at first involved finding a hospital, getting the bite cleaned and dressed, ascertaining whether or not the town had a sufficient dose of the rabies vaccine, should harriet need it. an incredibly kind doctor struggled in his [broken] english to assure us that everything would be fine, as we could go to a special clinic in the morning where harriet could get all the necessary vaccines. come the next day [and after an absolutely awful night´s sleep] we went to the clinic to talk toa gentleman who we can only assume to be the Peruvian Rabies Expert, because he was just brilliant. he took some more information about the dog, again re-assured that there was very little ravies in the area, nevertheless got harriet her first dose of the vaccine, and agreed to take some time out of his [obviously busy] day to attempt to track down the dog with us. this seemed less daunting, as the man appeared to be constantly sporting a stab-vest, as if he was forever fending off dogs with nothing but his bare hands. we popped back to our hostel for a spot of post-vaccine breakfast, and encountered our second remarkable gentleman of the day - this one a long-silver-haired jungle tour guide with phenomenal english and a bizarrely in-depth knowledge of the rabies virus. long-story-short, this guy took us to find the whereabouts of the dog, discovered that the dog had an owner, and instructed the owner to bring the dog´s rabies vaccination documents to our hostel to prove that the dog was healthy. all of this meant that we had to spend longer in huancayo than we would´ve liked, and it was a scary few days, but harry was left with nothing more sinister than a nasty scab. plus, on our last day, we actually made it to the kitsch park.

next stop from huancayo was ayacucho, a town famous for its easter week [´semana santa´] celebrations, and rightly so. after a terrifying bus journey [in which harriet kept grabbing my arm by reflex every time she caught sight of the far-too-close-looking-cliff-edge out of the window!] we arrived at 4am on good friday, aka harriet´s birthday. first we went to our hostel, where we were shown to our room for the next few days, complete with only one single bed [ayacucho hostels get ridiculously booked-up during semana santa.] we had a spooning-nap to recover from the bus journey, before sourcing a birthday breakfast [our standard fruit salad and yoghurt combo] and a hairdresser for harry to finally get her roots done [no mean feat in peru, where blonde hair isn´t exactly common!] that evening, we through caution to the wind [or, to the catholics] and bought a couple of lovely cold beers to drink on the street whilst we watched the procession - a model of christ in his grave, carried by all of the men of the town, followed by a model of a weeping mary, carried by the women; all very sombre and moving, and completely in candlelight. our ungodly beer-drinking attracted some other infidels - a group of young guys from lima - and we ended up spending the night with them, watching the procession, chatting copious amounts of spanish, and finally going for dinner in quite a fancy restaurant, which the limeños, adorably, paid for.

the next morning we were up early to adhere to a date harry had organised [in spanish!] the night before - another young limeño whose family are originally from ayacucho wanted to take us to his grandfather´s hacienda, a half-hour drive or so out of the city. this place was absolutely incredible, and we were able to just wander around to our hearts content, checking out the gorgeous landscape [and vineyards!] once we´d had our fill for the morning, we hitched a ride back to the city in a hilariously small car, driven by a man who had clearly never spoken to any foreigners before. a bit of english charm meant that a pound coin i happened to have in my wallet was payment enough, and we arrived in time to watch ´pascua toro´, a fascinating event, in which everybody in ayacucho dresses in red and lines the streets of the main plaza, before a bull is released into the crowd, and the young and foolish attempt to chase it and pull its tail. thanks to our new [incredibly-well-connected] friend, we were able to watch everything - including firemen drenching the crowd with their hoses, all the young guys making human pyramids [and nearly always falling], and all the young girls being thrown into the air by their boyfriends - from the safety of a balcony. the whole thing really was quite spectacular, though i still have very little idea how it relates to easter!

saturday evening is the main event in ayacucho - an all-night party leading up to fireworks at the dawning of easter sunday, so harry and i did the necessary thing and took an early evening siesta to prepare. we met up with some of the limeños again, and started on the rum-and-coke that we were counting on to keep us warm throughout the night. the wait didn´t seem too long, as we were kept entertained by streets of people dancing to a brass band, and haphazard fireworks that nearly always looked like they were going to do someone in the crowd damage. needless to say, it was worth waiting up for the dawn parade...the fireworks illuminated the front of the cathedral before the huge pyramid that we´d seen in construction for the previous two days appeared, covered in silver and white, and candles, and followed by an unbelievable number of people. the crowds were probably the most breathtaking thing - everyone just desperate to be part of this famous procession, and all the men jostling each other in an attempt to bear the huge structure just for a little while.

and now, after a few dodgy bus journeys and a more-than-irritating-robbing-of-harry´s-bag in cusco, we´re now finally in bolivia - a whole new country! so far we´ve only visited the bolivian side of the lake titicaca, which was perhaps even more beautiful than the peruvian side. we stayed on a lovely quiet island in the lake, small enough to be able to hike from the northern tip to the south. we took the route over the ridge of the mountain, and so were inundanted with beautiful views for the entire duration of the hike, and we even squeezed in a spot of sunbathing on an entirely deserted beach. [i say entirely deserted, but there were in fact copious pigs, cooling themselves down by burying themselves in the sand!] since then we´ve made our way to la paz, which so far seems bustling, busy, and impossibly big. there are already many bolivian-adventures in the pipeline, of which you will, of course, be kept informed, in the usual far-too-late-way-too-wordy manner.

until then, big love from a happy and healthy harry and suzie
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p.s. yet again, the internet´s playing up, so i can only upload half of my photos. many more [and more spectacular ones] to come!