The long road to Cusco - June 20-23

In Huancavelica we face a fork in the road, so to speak. We need to get to Ayacucho to begin our route to Cusco. On the map, this seems easy as Huancavelica and Ayacucho are actually quite close to each other. However, we soon learn that maps don´t always take into account the Andes and unpaved and damaged roads. We soon learn that to go to Ayacucho means three very rough trips on a series of combi buses. Also, it will likely take a full day and risk us being stuck at night waiting on the side of a road. We decide to take the longer but safer route through Huancayo. This seems a bit silly, since we just came from Huancayo, but we do the math and it makes more sense.

We grab a collectivo taxi, and once we´ve picked up enough passengers to fill up the car, we´re on our way. The driver zooms through the mountains of Huancavelica at mad speed...adding an element of excitement (and motion sickness) to a breath-taking landscape. I think it´s the most beautiful landscape I´ve seen yet. I chuckle at one point when we pass a small thatched roof house surrounded by nothing but air and mountains, yet with large graffiti reading, "Punk Lives!"

After about 3.5 hours, we arrive to Huancayo and wait for the night bus to Ayacucho. We thought this would be a smart choice, to just sleep the 10 hour trip away and wake up in our destination. Yet the road to Ayacucho is unpaved and in sore shape. We spend the whole night tossing our heads back and forth and bracing ourselves on the seat in front of us.

We spend a couple nights in Ayacucho recouperating. It´s a nice town. It´s a bit of a tourist town, but mostly for Peruvians. The first paved road from Lima only reached here in the 1999. It was also home to the Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) and some 60,000 people died in this region (mostly Campesinos).We do see some gringos here. Like us, they´re most likely stopping on their way to Inti Raymi in Cusco.

Next, comes the 22 hour bus ride to Cusco. The roads were only bad for the first few hours of the journey, but it was a long time to spend in a spring-poking arm chair, especially on a bus without bathrooms. But we endure and make it to Cusco the next night ...just as Inti Raymi begins.