TO HUANCAYO AND THE HIGH ANDES, Peru - 25th & 26th August

25th August Friday- The bus to Huancayo (this was a stop enroute to Ayacucho & Cusco) was at 10.30am from San Isisdro - a suburb not far from us at Miraflores. The service offered by many of the Bus companies in Peru are very efficient. Cruz Del Sur (Southern Cross) - the company we were using for this trip, is probably one of the best in Peru and we were totally impressed with them and the bus terminal; the ticket and baggage check-in, the quality of the buses, the stewards, the food , etc. They even took videos of all the passengers getting into the bus and seated as well..............and the funniest of all was that they had a game of Bingo on the bus with a "free Return Ticket" within Peru as a prize. This was a real social event on the bus.

The bus journey from Lima to Huancayo is spectacular and we were looking forward to it even though it would take us 6-7 hours. As we left Lima we realised how big the city really is. On the outer city limits we passed the many slums on the hillsides. These hillsides were all like 200 - 500ft of grey clay, this slowly turned to 1000 - 2000ft ragged peaks as we moved into the Andes. Soon we left Lima and the cloudy skies behind and started climbing up the Andes; first heading north-east to La Oroya up the steep uphill climb and then southwards to Huancayo.


We felt the altitude, especially when we were at the highest point at the pass of Ticlio at 4758 metres. The peaks around us were snow capped and patches of ice lay on the ground. There was not much we could do about the disorienting feeling & dizziness but wait till the bus started descending again. Letay felt it the most but was pretty tolerant.


The rugged mounains around, the scenery, unbelievable at times and knowing we were in the central sierras at such high altitudes, was a tremendous feeling. We passed a few very dusty and remote small towns and finally Juaja, before we reached Huancayo.

Huancayo is located at 3249mts ; we arrived at 5.00pm. We could still feel the effects of the altitude and were in a sort of a daze. At the bus-stop we got a really helpful, efficient taxi driver who took us around to check out a few hotels and with his help we found a very decent new hotel called ''Los Balcones", overlooking the Cathedral dome and very close to the central Plaza. We all had heavy heads and felt the shortness of breath. After an hour or so in the room we went out for a wander to look for a place for dinner. Had our first lousy meal in a small cafe next to the hotel, but as we were all tired we were keen to finish quickly and go to bed. The hotel served Mate de Coca (Coca Tea) in the lobby all the time, to help with the altitude sickness. Strange taste but certainly a welcome warm drink.

26th August Saturday - Had local breakfast of rice and gravy-potatoes in a side alley cafe - don't know how they managed to serve such a nice meal including coffee for $1. Most of the activity happened around the main square or the Plaza de la Constitution with a fountain in the middle. It was in Huancayo that the Peruvian Constitution was first approved in 1839. Huancayo more than any other city was paralysed in the 1980 - 90's by the Shining Path (Sendero Luminoso) terror attacks. We did not have any plans to sightsee here but just walk around town and maybe go to up the hill - 'Cerrito de la Liberatad' to get a view of the city and further.



Being in the Andes you certainly see a lot of the distinctive Andean Women with the bowler hats, large multi-layered colourful skirts, and babies wrapped tightly on their backs in bright woven shawls. All those romantic pictures seen over the years suddenly come alive and we realise "We are in Peru".

We first got our bus tickets sorted for Ayacucho and then went up the hill towards the Park. On the way we walked down the commercial street of the town and we must have passed over 30 cake shops. There were very fancy cakes of all shapes, colour and sizes - quite fascinating and we wondered if the people did manage to sell/consume all this amount of cakes. Letay dubbed this town the "City of Cakes".


Up on the hill there is a Park and a Church surrounded by gitchy statues and some small cafes selling barbecued and grilled food. The church on the hill has been designed with a very modern approach.




There was a hilarious version Christ crucified on the outer wall of the church. A lot of the work here had a very Gaudyesque feel to it especially the large open air theatre.


The view of the city from here was great but that's about it for the place. There was quite a nice well used swimming pool and playground up here. We had brought some food & fruit at the supermarket in town so we had that and not much later, then walked down back to the Plaza and to the hotel. Letay is certainly amazing with the walking - a small amount of complaining but she still does it.

Later that evening the Plaza was as alive as ever being the weekend; many people about and the place all lit up. A very good, lively atmosphere with the locals, especially young people all hanging around. We did not see tourists here, in fact maybe we saw just two others. We would have liked to have seen some folkloric dance and music but most of the places did not start till after 10.00 and that was too late for Letay. Huancayo has a huge selection of chinese (Chifa) restaurants as there is a considerable number of chinese origin Peruvians living here; they came to Peru in the 19th century mainly to construct the railway (Labour from China, Timber from Oregon). We decided to eat chinese and once inside, we could have been in any chinese restaurant in the world, - apart from the spanish spoken & on the menu, It did not feel like south America or Peru at all. However we could not get the food spicy enough even when we got raw chilli served.

After dinner we walked around the plaza which was still lively. We had our Coca tea back at the hotel and worked on the blogsite. The receptionist at this hotel, a young lady seemed to be always on duty - she was never overly friendly but was super efficient, polite and always sorted our problems out with the minimum fuss.

Next morning we had to take the 9-hour bus trip to Ayacucho on a dirt-track road, through the Central Sierra. That night Rossini & Letay feel asleep soon ......after all the early morning & long walks. Deepa stayed up until 1am watching some re-run of a Prime Suspect shown on TV.