Over night bus rides, yuck! But very economic!! :P We slept a bit better this time as we had super cushy seats. The best part about this ride, the entire top floor of the double decker bus played a game of Bingo together! Hilarious! I almost won - only one number away! The winner got 100 soles to spend on another bus ride with the line - something we really could have used!! What a hoot!
We arrived bright and early, and thankfully grabbed a taxi instead of wondering around the city to find our hostal, subsequent trips would be much harder and longer - our hostal is WAY up hill, actually, everything outside of the Plaza de Armas is WAY up hill! Makes for some absolutely gorgeous sites, and a lot of huffing and puffing! As soon as we were settled into our room, we headed back out to explore the town! This is our first view of the city when we left the hostal - it was a stunning day!
Plaza de Armas was ram packed with vendors, food and people for the annual Christmas Eve market. This photo only shows about a half of the space. We picked up some really great gifts, stopped a few times for some eats, and enjoyed the heck out of the day! Many of the items for sale were actually made by the people selling them - hats, mitts, scarves, sweaters, ponchos - tons of stuff, and all hand made. Beautiful weaved bags, belts and bracelets, and beautiful, bright colours, all naturally dyed. What a treat!
There is two huge churches on this plaza...
And these beautiful ladies with their babies on their backs and a super cute baby llama, work the market, posing with everyone and anyone, for only a few soles ($). Oh my goodness, these kids are just about the sweetest thing I've ever seen! And they all just hang out, all content like, on moms back for the majority of the day.
And when the sun goes down, it just gets better! The hills were lit up like a Christmas tree, and as soon as it starts getting dark, everyone starts lighting off fireworks - sporadically at first and mostly kids, but by the end of the night, the hills are alive with flashes of light everywhere!
After a very long day, we were exhausted, and crashed around 11:30... I wish we had stayed up just a little longer! Little did I know, the grand finally was just around the corner! 12:00 and we're woken back up by the sound of more fireworks than you can imagine! Unfortunately we were already tucked in, but I wanted so badly to get outside and see all the lights, I'm sure it was breath taking!
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