My first visitors!

My friend Lauren, who I knew from Cambridge, and her husband have been travelling in South America for the last few months and came to visit me on their way to Cusco. Ruth, my English friend in Curahuasi, also came to join us to have a rest from Spanish. It was great to have my first visitors. Abancay is starting to feel like home and it was very confidence-building to play the host and not the guest.

We visited Pachachaka and the little thermal pools (where I triumphantly remembered the way), and I subjected them to guinea pig for lunch - we were also eaten alive by many small flies but it was still a worthwhile meal. Never before have I been to a restaurant where the lady offers you insect repellent before taking your order!

They also came to my church, where I made my first attempt at simultaneous translation - I think I managed to pass on a bit more than half. We went out for dinner with my friends Sofia and Giancarlos - and with Justin’s travel-learned Spanish and Sofia’s rusty English they actually all managed to communicate quite well!

On Monday there was a strike in Abancay. It started last week in Andahuaylas over a dramatic rise in energy prices, but then came here. On Tuesday a big group from Andahuaylas also came here - because Abancay is the regional capital. But the Andahuaylinos are striking experts and didn’t think we were very enthusiastic - so the centre of town got a bit nasty, with people being threatened with knotted rope and made to join the strike, and some shops being looted. So we stayed away from the centre of town, and the main Lima-Cusco road (which was blocked). I talked to everyone we met to make sure we weren’t heading into trouble, and we had a lovely walk out past a smaller and peaceful roadblock and up the hill to the viewpoint over Abancay. We stopped on the way for lunch - fresh trout, caught while we watched - and came back down to Abancay in the late afternoon. On the way home we discovered tarantula number 3 in the middle of the path, and 2 girls who were so scared they wouldn't walk past it!

 

 

It was a lovely bonus day - they had been planning to leave but the strike meant there were no buses to Cusco. They managed to go with no problems on Wednesday.