Abancay

Took a grueling ten hour night bus through non stop mountains from Nasca to Abancay. We got off the bus the following morning accompanied by only two other tourists…a major change from the gringo trail we were on previously. We started chatting and shared a taxi to our guesthouse and ended up becoming good friends with the two german girls. It was fantastic to be out of the desert and surrounded by lush mountains, in a town that sees hardly any tourists. , THe most amazing part of abancay was definetly the old ladies though, who dressed in amazing traditional outfits including top hats, lacy blouses, multilayered skirts, and legwarmers all in wonderful colors…it was like we were finally in peru. The Sunday market was particularly awesome…with tons of old ladies…where we bought fresh produce to cook up in the rice cooker we purchased in lima…the food in peru in general is very delicious but not terribly healthy, so nothing tastes better then a huge pot of fresh veggies on the road…well worth the inconvenience of lugging around…and great way to save money on eating out…the markets basically give away produce. Anyways, we went on a great hike into the outskirts of town which was super charming old fashioned farmy like…and one day headed up to the mirador(the Spanish name for look out) were they had all sorts of exotic animals on display including condors, pecunias, bears, felines, cayotes and so on…always a little depressing to see fenced in but beautiful nonetheless.