Trip to Ayacucho

Since I was busy hard at work all last weekend, and since I have been dying to go on a trip since November, this weekend I am going off on an adventure to Ayacucho.  Don’t bother looking it up, you certainly won’t find it in a guide book, as it is well off the beaten track.

Ayacucho has some really interesting and little-known history.  Originally it was called Huamanga, the center of the Wari empire that existed in Peru from about 700AD-1200AD.  The Wari are understood to be the first empire that spread wide enough to unite most of what is today Peru.  The Incas came after the Wari, in about the 1400s, and then fell to the Spaniards in the 1500s, who renamed the city San Juan de la Frontera (St. John of the Frontier).  It was later renamed San Juan de la Victoria (St. John of Victory) after an important battle against the rebellious Incas, and in 1824, Simon Bolivar, the famous liberator of South America, won a decisive victory in Ayacucho over the Spaniards which ended Spanish rule over Peru.  He then renamed the city to Ayacucho, a Quechua word meaning “City of Blood.”

I am leaving tonight on an overnight bus (about 9 hours) and will return Monday morning.  I’ll see if I can post updates between now and then, but I won’t be able to share my lovely pictures until Monday, so hang tight!