To Andahuaylas and Huinchos

It was about 1 PM when we left the house on our way to the Molino Bus Terminal to catch our 4:20 bus to Andahuaylas, and it was a good thing we left early, traffic was terrible and we didn't get there any to early.  We checked in, greeted some relatives who came to see us off, once again, we weren't clear who they were due to language difficulties.  Soon we were on board a very new and quite comfortable bus, wide seats and plenty of leg room, and were wending our way through southern Lima, picking up passengers at Molino substations as we went.  Finally, we broke free of the city and began moving along the coast south of Lima.  There were many villages and towns and not a few large factories and warehouses along the way, but the most dominant feature was the aridness of the landscape.  I had read that much of coastal Peru was dessert but the landscape we were moving thru really made the point.  Except for areas that were irrigated everything was a shade of brown and in most areas the hills came right up to the ocean.  This was the last thing we saw as the light slowly faded into dark.  Within an hour of nightfall we turned east and started up the hills into the mountains.  It was easy to tell in the dark that this was happening, as the road was a series of sharp curves and hairpin turns, which kept us sliding from one side of our seats to the other and before the night was over created a good deal of motion sickness in the bus. Not so pleasant.  For David and I it was a long mostly sleepless night, though it seemed that most people on the bus despite their motion sickness did not have trouble sleeping not even waking up for stops in a few big Andean cities..  Finally and slowly dawn broke and we began to be able to see a beautiful mountain landscape full of adobe houses and small farms.  

After dawn it still took us several hours to pull into the bus station in Andahuaylas, but we had finally arrives and we stumbled out of the bus in a sleepless daze and faced the day.  Soon relatives of Victor and Mama greeted us at the station, bundled us into a taxi, driven by a relative, and we were off first to the central market to buy supplies, then to the house of Mama's daughter to say hello and finally, towards noon we started out of town, up the hill, toward Huinchos.  As we traveled the road, which was under major construction, Victor kept getting calls from the family in Huinchos, we thought it was only that they were worried about our trip, but as we pulled up to a corner in the town, just off the highway, we discovered the reason.  There were at least 50 people, mostly relatives, a band and fireworks waiting for us.  They had been waiting there for several hours, but that didn't dampen their enthusiasm to see us as we pulled up.  As soon as I realized what was going on I hopped out of the car so that I could get pictures.  David got out of the taxi and was immediately embraced by his older full brother Alejandro.  They were both in tears, unable to believe that after nearly 35 years they were again together.  What followed was a stream of hugs, smiles and tears, accompanied by music from the band, as nearly all the people gathered were relatives or close friends of the family.  Also there was David's paternal grandmother, who was in her 80's and still spry.  After a time of greeting the crowd starting walking the three or four blocks to Ali's, what everyone calls Alejandro, house.  The parade was led by David, his father Victor and his grandmother, sometimes joined by Ali, while the band played and people laughed and cried.  It was quite a sight.  (Soon I will upload pictures , but if you want to see them before that, check out Katie Huffling's page on Facebook - she is David's sister.)

We arrived at Ali and his wife Bertha's house to lunch and a celebration that went on and on, pictures were taken, conversations, such as they were with our seriously broken Spanish and the fact that many only spoke Quechua, and just adjusting to the new surroundings kept us occupied and somewhat unaware that we were seriously sleep deprived.  Toward evening we went to the town cemetery where David's mother, Simona, was buried.  It was another touching moment in a day of them, first David knelt at the grave alone his head bowed, then he was joined by his brother Ali and his father Victor - a family reunited.  Then, other relatives joined them for pictures and after a time a tour of relatives' graves in the cemetery.  And the band was still there, playing local music - at one point they handed their instruments to David, Ali and I, and we faked it as best we could.  After a time we began to leave the cemetery and assembled for family and friends pictures just outside.  Then we walked back to Ali house, a two story adobe building where we would be staying, and continued learning about each other, eating and listening to the band playing.  It turned dark out but things just went on, at times waves of tiredness engulfed us, remember we hadn't slept on the bus, but it was hard to break away.  Finally sleep came with the band still playing.