Getting Around Ayacucho and Peru

 

"motocar"

One thing I love about living in Peru is there is no need to own a car :)   Although Ayacucho itself is relatively big (according to Google, 60 square miles...but I'm assuming that is counting outlying little communities, cause it doesn't seem that big), the area where you choose to live has pretty much everything you need.  So, needing to travel much farther than 1 mile from our house is rare.  The kids' school is 1.3 miles from our house and that's the farthest we travel on a regular basis. It does take about 10 minutes to travel that 1 mile though if traffic is bad!  The plaza, which we go to weekly, is 3/4 of a mile.  Unless I'm carrying a lot of groceries, we usually walk there and back.  Noe's work is just over 1 mile from our house.  He got a bike to make that commute faster and to save money with taxis! :)  Most of the stores/markets where I shop are less than a mile away. (two are right downstairs from us!).

One of the stores I like to shop at is on this street - by the "Arch" - which is near the Plaza.  No cars are allowed near the plaza so everyone is walking!

So, we walk almost everywhere.  A benefit of walking is getting to pet and love on all the dogs we see - One of Ella's favorite things to do lol 🧡

Since the Pandemic, a lot of people have invested in motorcycles here.  They're smaller and cheaper than cars, and you don't have to share the space with anyone.  Pretty good idea actually.  But they literally are everywhere! lol

If we don't want to walk, we have two options - motorcar or taxi.  The motorcars are for distances around 1/4 mile to 3/4 mile.  Most don't want to travel a mile outside their area - although we've had a few make exceptions.  They charge less than taxis, so that's our first choice if possible.  

This is a 30 second video of most of my motocar ride today to Noe's work :) 

The taxis will take you anywhere, but cost more.  When we have to go to school, we usually have to get a taxi because most motorcars don't want to go that far.  It's funny, because the taxis aren't marked.  You really have no idea which cars are taxis and which are private vehicles.  At first, we were hesitant when we hailed a taxi because we didn't want someone to pick us up if it wasn't a taxi.  But, after a few months, we've realized that almost every car is a taxi lol.  If it has a divider up between the driver and passenger - then it's a taxi.  

This is the market near our house - you can see the motorcars driving by :)  But it's so close (about 5 blocks) that I always walk.

If we want to travel outside of Ayacucho we also have a few options.  If we're going outside the "department" of Ayacucho and the car ride would be over 10 hours, then flying makes more sense.  In order to fly anywhere in Peru, we first have to go to Lima.  All the departments (with the exception of a few), only fly to Lima.  So, if we wanted to go to Cuzco, first we'd fly one hour to Lima and then another hour from Lima to Cuzco.  Because of the mountains, if we drove to Cuzco it would probably be 15-20 hours; but flying would only take 2 hours (plus the 2-3 hour layover).  

If we want to go somewhere 5-8 hours away, we could take a public bus or go to the "car stop" (like a bus stop - but they are cars) for that particular place.  We can pay someone to take us to a nearby city.  This is what we did when we went to Sarhua and Huanta.  

Coming back from Sarhua (a very small town), they only had a van available to take us back to Ayacucho, and no one else needed a ride.  So, we had to pay for a few other seats (otherwise we would've had to wait until there were more passengers!).

The cars cost more than a bus, but you have more privacy in a car, which is worth it if you can afford it - especially during the pandemic.  There are also bus services that will take you all over Peru.  I did this once 20 years ago...and it's the most common form of travel here because it's more affordable - but it's really pretty terrible.  It's almost always overnight and it's almost always around dangerous curves and mountains.  Crashes aren't abnormal.  They really need to make flights more affordable for people here - or build some tunnels to make mountain travel easier and safer!

Well, that's travel here in a nutshell :) 

Safe travels and God bless! 

In Christ,

Laurie and the Juarez family :)