Saturday Evening in Ayacucho

Hi All-  We are comfy in our apartment for the night.  Today was the first day in a long time that we did not HAVE to be somewhere.  We didn't really sleep in but it still seemed relaxing.  Well, it was relaxing until recluse spider #3 decided to appear.  Of course it showed up here in the living room while Moyra was in the shower leaving me to capture it alone!  Ever since living in Kansas City I have had a healthy respect for recluse spiders.  I put the "spider cup" on top of it and waited for Moyra to help me get it outside.  Our apartment is up a small but treacherous flight of uneven concrete stairs and then we walk through the landlords garage to the locked door outside....it takes two to dispose of spiders.  After breakfast and showers we took the bus into town.  For the first time the bus was not overly crowded.  School children take public buses during the week so they are frequently packed.  The person in charge of the door had two young boys give up their seats for us....also a first.  It was a relaxing ride into town.
Our USB internet connection had run out so our first stop was the Claro (Clear) store.  The first place sent us to a second place (and we didn't even get lost).  Sadly Clear was not too clear on how to help us  even though we had been told earlier that it would be easy.  Our device recharges automatically on the 20th so we only needed 4 days worth of power.  It took over an hour in a rather hot store to get it all sorted out but here we are connected again.  We can always use GeGe's internet connection up at the school but it is nice to have it here as well.
After that was settled we went back to the artisan market for the second time. As usual we found more treasures that we could not live without.  We may need to leave all of our clothes here so the Peru stuff fits. We left the market and happened upon one of Ayacucho's thirty some churches. The door was open so we went in for a look and some holy water.  Church viewing and shopping made us hungry so we went to a hotel that was supposed to have not only good food but also a weaving exhibition featuring the dad of one of the teachers at the school.  We discovered that the food was not so good and the exhibition did not start until this evening.  We did dine in a beautiful plant and art filled courtyard so that made up for the rest.
Next, we hung out in the main plaza for a bit and tried our first sample of the street made ice cream.  Ladies have the concoction in big metal tubs surrounded by chunks of ice.  It reminds me of making ice cream in coffee cans at school.  It tasted like corn (lots of stuff has a corn base here) but was quite good and given that it was a nice sunny (probably mid 70s) day it was perfect.  The plaza and all of the central part of the town is usually so painfully busy.  It is hard to walk because of so many people, and crossing the street is an experience....as in try not to get smashed by a car, bus, truck.  Today is was so quiet that we could walk in the streets.  We joked that we were going to walk around the plaza streets over and over just because we could.  Eventually though we left and went to the grocery store for our staples (wine, chocolate and toilet paper).  Finally, we got on a not-crowded bus and came back up to Carmen Alto. Moyra and I have been taking turns on the internet and reading our books.  A rather wonderful Saturday! Hope all is well with you!