Ayacucho is a small town in the mountains of central Peru (about a 10 hour bus ride from Lima). In the early 1980s, Ayacucho was most famous as the headquarters of terrorist organization Shining Path. Nowadays, its much more peaceful, and for most of the year is a relatively sleepy town. The only exception is during Easter, when Ayacucho is known across Peru, and increasingly across South America, as the place to be.
Joining the semana santa celebrations in Ayacucho definitely requires some planning ahead. When we booked our accommodation over four months ago most places were booked out. Also, you won't find any international hotel chains - the hotel we booked, one of the bigger ones in town, wasn't even on tripadvisor and we had to send money through western union to secure our reservation.
There are beautiful 16th and 17th century churches spotted all over central Ayacucho, and on the day we arrived there, Easter Thursday, the tradition is to visit each of them. We followed the crowds, witnessing all the final preparations for the big few days ahead.
Joining the semana santa celebrations in Ayacucho definitely requires some planning ahead. When we booked our accommodation over four months ago most places were booked out. Also, you won't find any international hotel chains - the hotel we booked, one of the bigger ones in town, wasn't even on tripadvisor and we had to send money through western union to secure our reservation.
There are beautiful 16th and 17th century churches spotted all over central Ayacucho, and on the day we arrived there, Easter Thursday, the tradition is to visit each of them. We followed the crowds, witnessing all the final preparations for the big few days ahead.
The structure of the weekend follows the biblical chronology that we're all familiar with, and on the Thursday night some churches hosted performances representing that at that stage Jesus had been arrested.
The main event on Good Friday was a procession through the streets of town to mark the stations of the cross. In preparation, locals spent all afternoon constructing beautiful religious street art, predominately using colored salt. Once completed, this served as a form of red carpet for the procession that night.
The main event on Good Friday was a procession through the streets of town to mark the stations of the cross. In preparation, locals spent all afternoon constructing beautiful religious street art, predominately using colored salt. Once completed, this served as a form of red carpet for the procession that night.
The crowds witnessing the procession were huge and at one stage, when some ambitious and wide-elbowed locals decided they wanted to push through the crowds to follow the procession, we were a bit worried there'd be a stampede. One advantage of Ayacucho being well off the gringo trail is that Sam was comfortably taller (often two feet taller) than almost everybody around him, so he had no trouble seeing the procession, even after we got pushed a few rows back.
Since we arrived in Ayacucho the streets had been littered with vendors selling red t-shirts depicting angry bulls. On Saturday morning thousands of people (including us) donned the uniform of the day to witness Ayacucho's version of Pamplona's running of the bulls. This version, we're happy to report, is much less dangerous, as bulls are let out one at a time and organizers at least attempt to keep the bulls on a leash. Even so, it was good fun to watch (from a safe distance).
The festivities concluded early on Sunday morning with fireworks running from midnight to 5am to mark the resurrection of Jesus.
Easter Sunday allowed us an opportunity to tour an increasingly quiet downtown before catching our overnight bus back to Lima. Although Ayacucho doesn't feature in many tourist guide books, we really enjoyed being able to join in the unique semana santa festivities and would recommend that others touring South America around that time of the year give it serious consideration.
The festivities concluded early on Sunday morning with fireworks running from midnight to 5am to mark the resurrection of Jesus.
Easter Sunday allowed us an opportunity to tour an increasingly quiet downtown before catching our overnight bus back to Lima. Although Ayacucho doesn't feature in many tourist guide books, we really enjoyed being able to join in the unique semana santa festivities and would recommend that others touring South America around that time of the year give it serious consideration.
