Ayaviri, Fat of the Dead / A Weekend in a Walk-in Freezer

Construction with passersby

Construction with passersby

Pigeons on the wing

Ruin restoration class

Teacher's strike

Marching practice

Snacking nuns

Sicuani moto-taxi

Sicuani to  Juliaca "terminal"

Bus terminal

Tradtional taxi

Patient  baby

Cool painting  in the hotel room

Ayaviri Relief Society 

Ayaviri Relief Society 

After Conference picnic chuño y papas

After Conference picnic chuño y papas 

Priesthood leaders

Young Men

Mother’s Day was fun; we talked with all our children and grandchildren and had a great shrimp curry for lunch. The four sister missionaries from upstairs came down to call their families and we had a great time listening to their squeals and laughter and then trying to comfort them as the tears came when they had to say goodbye.  

We attended our zone meeting last Monday morning which meant we didn’t have to travel to Urubamba. We met the Johnson’s, Rhoades and the Sandberg’s for lunch and had a fun visit with all of them.  We worked extra hard all week in preparation for Julie’s brothers visit. Happily we finished the extremely difficult books from Espinar. Books that we thought looked difficult seem like a piece of cake now after the last month of fighting the awful books.

Rich spent a good portion of the week running errands, doing interviews, meeting with the archive director and getting prices for banners etc. for the Family Search portion of the big fair that is coming up in June. Julie worked taking pictures happy to let Rich deal with all the other stuff that needed to be done.

We have been trying to get airline tickets from Cusco to Lima for our trip home to the states in June and finally our travel agent friend in Lima sent us some. We received the email at 1:00pm, didn’t see it until after 5:00pm, and because it was such a good deal we had to get it paid by 11:00 pm that night. We can pay for the tickets in Plaza Vea, the big grocery store here, so we dashed to the mall to take care of that.  Amazingly, that process is slick and easy! 

We also had to pay a $20.00 fee to our travel agent and that wasn’t so easy. That has to be paid through her bank and while Rich was in the grocery store, Julie reached the door for the bank only to be turned away because it was 6:00pm and they close at 6:00pm on the dot. We have to laugh because for so many things here “time” is but a “suggestion,” however, for banks apparently, they don’t mess around with the posted times. Rich finally managed to pay it the next day.

It’s always an adventure when we travel. Here’s how it played out this past weekend when we attended the district conference for Ayaviri. This is the typical scenario. We caught a taxi in front of our apartment that took us to the busses that go to Sicuani. We just missed one that was pulling out, but that was fine because the very back seats are incredibly bumpy. We bought our tickets for the next bus and then we wait until the bus fills up, usually 20-30 minutes. We left Cusco about 4:30pm and it takes 2 ½ hours to get to Sicuani. We arrived in Sicuani in the dark and Rich knocked on the door to the drivers’ cabin to tell him we needed to get off at the fork in the road. We then walked down the poorly lit street for about three blocks in the freezing cold rain until we arrived at the hotel.  The hotel is amazingly nice for this part of the country and they have a decent restaurant. We ate a good dinner and went to our room. There is a small space heater that does next to nothing to heat the freezing room, so after dinner we climb into bed to stay warm.

Saturday morning we had breakfast with the Johnson’s who were there doing their thing with family history for the Sicuani stake. We left at 10:30am, this time in a moto-taxi to go to the bus station for Juliaca. We bought our tickets and then we waited again until the bus filled up. We drove for nearly 2 hours to Pukara where we told the driver to please let us off. We bought some good bread/rolls there and walked across the street to get in a taxi/car for the 15 minute ride to Choquehuanca. The taxi let us out in the plaza and then we walked to the church where we met the district president right on time at 1pm. Not surprisingly, he didn’t have his key because he loaned it to the members who cleaned the church for the conference. After many phone calls and trying to decide what to do, the two elders serving there showed up, got their key from their apartment across the street and we finally got into the church 30 minutes later. It was gray and so cold and it was snowing on the mountain tops. Walking into these churches is exactly like entering a walk-in freezer. We froze! They do have heat in these chapels but often times it doesn’t work. Fortunately after about an hour in the chapel for the 2pm meeting, the heat kicked on but no one took off their coats, gloves, blankets or scarves. It didn’t do much but it was better than nothing. 

Between sessions, those attending received a box of juice and a package of soda crackers. Then the adult session began at 4pm and we had a wonderful meeting with the members there. We rode back to Ayaviri (in the direction of Sicuani) in the combi the members from Ayaviri had come in and got to the bus station at 7pm, only to find that the last bus to Sicuani had left. We stood around a bit trying to figure out what to do. Finding a place to stay in Ayaviri was the absolute last option on so many levels! We had a hotel we would have to pay for in Sicuani and well, we were in Ayaviri. This town is so named because after a big Inca battle, they stacked up corpses and used it as a source of fat. In Quecha Aya means dead and wira means suet so it got corrupted by the Spanish, like most invading armies… Anyway, cold heaps of dead fat does not make for a particularly attractive image…

A man finally said he would take us in his taxi for an outrageous sum. He told us to get in his combi that was full of people. We were a bit confused but jumped in the front seat and then he explained that we were going to Santa Rosa, about fifteen minutes on the way to Sicuani where he would drop off all the people in the combi and take us in his car to Sicuani. Our toes were just beginning to thaw when we arrived in Santa Rosa and the driver said that the people who lived in Santa Rosa had to get out on the main road, and hike up the hill to town. He wasn’t going to take his bus up there because he was going to Sicuani. There were a lot of mad people! We could hear them talking and grumbling about the foreigners who had to go to Sicuani and wasn’t their money good enough to get them up the hill etc. We felt really bad but it wasn’t our doing, strictly speaking. 

We got out of the van and we could hear the taxi trying to start. It wasn’t sounding good at all, the engine wouldn’t turn over. We’re standing on the side of the road, freezing and in the pitch black and the thought of spending the night in Santa Rosa made Ayaviri look like the Ritz. Julie looked mean there in the dark with the, “What-have-you-gotten-me-into-now glare.”

Finally the engine started and we got in the car and the driver gave us a blanket and said we could use it. It was a sure sign that there was no heat in the car. The back seat felt like iron bars with a tarp over it and we just had to laugh. We threw the blanket over our legs, having no idea if it was clean or where it had been. We didn’t care, we were so thankful to be on our way. We had an hour drive and it rained and sleeted the whole way through the inky night. The driver kept wiping his windshield because it was fogging up and Julie prayed the entire time.  

Sicuani never looked so good and we got into the hotel right at 9pm. We asked if there was any way to get something to eat, but the chef had left at 9pm “en punto,” punctual as a Peruvian banker. So there was no food. We had eaten 2 ½ pieces of bread and 4 soda crackers each during the day. We had a little food in our room so we climbed into bed to get warm and shared a little bag of Peruvian corn-nuts and each ate a Milky Way candy bar. We were assured there would be breakfast in the morning.

We had to leave the hotel at 7am to make it to Ayaviri for the Sunday session of conference. The Johnson’s were coming with us so we met at 6:30am for breakfast, the posted time. There was no breakfast or anyone even attempting to get a breakfast ready. The desk clerk said that there would be breakfast about 7am. maybe. We left and caught the bus to Ayaviri about a 1 ½ hour trip. Happily the sun was shining and we were warm! The church was freezing again and there was no heat so we gave our talks in our coats and gloves. We had a wonderful meeting, Rich bore his testimony in Quechua, his first time. Then we were invited to the side of the church where the members had brought boiled potatoes and chuno (the freeze dried then boiled potatoes) to eat afterwards. The sun felt so good and everyone was sitting on the grass enjoying the potato picnic. We each ate a little potato, took pictures, said our goodbyes and walked to the bus station to go back to Sicuani.

We arrived in Sicuani about 4pm, walked to the station for the big busses and en route stopped at a gelato store, of all things and got a cup of delicious gelato! Go figure, in Sicuani of all places. We took a taxi from the bus station to pick up our bags at the hotel and then back to the station to take the bus back to Cusco. We were all pretty exhausted and happy to be on our way home. 

We love this time of year with the golden quinoa glowing in the fall setting sun. The fields are beautiful patchworks of greens, yellows and browns and we still marvel at this gorgeous country. We love the Altiplano despite some of the discomfort. This is after all, home in a very real way. We are so thankful to be serving here and love the people and the incredible adventures we are having.