Hola Ayacucho!

Well, Heathrow feels like way more than a week ago! Thank you, Andrea, for managing to get me to the airport on time, and after a pretty tiring 30-hour journey, via Amsterdam, Bonaire, and Lima, I´ve made it to Ayacucho. I had to wait 11 hours in Lima, but thanks to Natalia´s lovely friends Francisco and Ana Maria, the time passed quickly, and by 6 last Sunday morning I had met the other new volunteers and was in another world, on a very small plane, looking at fabulous views of the Andes on the 1-hour flight to Ayacucho.



Ayacucho is nestled up in the Andes at 2,800 m - and even though it´s a city of nearly 200,000 inhabitants, it feels extremely remote. After the big-city hustle and bustle of Lima, this is a completely different place entirely!

We were met at the airport and then taken to the Cross-Cultural Solutions ´Home Base´ for some breakfast and to settle in. We met some of the other volunteers, who were waking up gradually. Everyone seems very nice - there are 17 of us in total, ranging from age 18-60, and from England, Ireland, Canada and USA - a good mix! This is the Home Base, and I´m on the 4th floor (which we would call the 3rd floor), and this is also where there´s a roof-top terrace for us to do our washing, sunbathe, and drink in the evenings - all very civilised. It has the feel of a very comfortable youth hostel, but as there aren´t many of us, the rooms aren´t full and it´s good to have a bit of space. I´m sharing with Gillan, a very nice Irish woman, and we´ve already made the room feel like home!



And this is the view of Ayacucho from our bedroom ... we´re just on the outskirts of the centre, but not what I´d call suburbs. It´s about a 15-minute walk to the central square, Plaza Mayor, so all quite convenient.



On the Sunday we arrived, we were all pretty shattered and a bit fazed by our new surroundings. I hadn´t really had any proper sleep for 2 nights, but Phil, one of the óld´volunteers kindly offered to take us on a guided tour, so how could I refuse!

We walked into the centre, with moto-taxis whizzing past, and crazy traffic everywhere - felt very busy for a Sunday! And in the main square they were preparing for a procession at 11 and people were gathering, sitting on the various steps under the arches around the square. I think we were the only ´gringos´there. There was a real buzz, with so many people on the streets - selling everything you can imagine, in or out of anything you can imagine! And then at 11, after the band played the national anthem, the procession started. It was made up of childen mainly, from tiny to teenage, representing various schools and clubs and all trying to march in the way the army had done at the beginning - you could feel the pride they took in representing their institution, and they were all trying really hard to stay in time and to do it properly ... Apparently there´s some kind of procession or event in the square every Sunday, but at the time it felt like a really special welcome for us, and it felt very good to be in Ayacucho at last!