Thousands of mg´s of cipro later...

Picking up from where we left off...we find ourselves in the Jesus capital of Peru, Ayacucho. This week is commonly referred to as Semana Santa (the week before easter) and thousands of Peruvians flock to the Andean town of Ayacucho to celebrate in what´s known as the biggest celebration of Semana Santa in the country. Dave is getting attention in the form of dumb-founded stares, smiles, chuckles, eager hellos, or the basic "Jesus" or "Christo" cat calls. We have seen religious processions a plenty, including the one in the third photo. Otherwise a sleepy town that rarely sees gringo tourists, during Semana Santa the streets are packed with thousands of people. Hectic, but exciting.

Prior to our pilgrimage, we visited some Moche (pre-Inka) ruins outside of Trujillo. The top photo is the Temple of the Sun, which wasn´t actually called that in Moche times, so they are struggling with what to call it now. The second photo is from inside the Temple of the Moon, which, you guessed it, wasn´t actually called the Temple of the Moon. No matter what they´re called, they are some remarkable ruins, dating to sometime around 500 ad. The second photo shows a well-preserved likeness of their god, which looks slightly different than diety being paraded around in photo 3. We head southwest to rejoin the "gringo trail" tonight, and will be in Ica tomorrow. Maybe we´ll post some photos of us sandboarding, or maybe not...stay tuned.