Seeing the streets of Huamanga plethoric with tranquillity and harmony, it is difficult to conceive the violence and terror that for over ten years spread through them. Discrepancies in history which the people of Ayacucho knew to hold out against because of their firm belief in the benevolence of that being, supreme and magnanimous, ruling in the Heavens.

Days of prayer

During Holy Week in Huamanga , the capital of the department of Ayacucho, there is a feeling, close to celestial, of peace. The city transforms. Aromas of incense and murmuring of prayers. Tearful eyes. Men and women in a slow pace, recalling the passion, death and resurrection of the Son of God. Traditions and rites surviving over the centuries making of this spot the Capital of Holy Week in Peru.

The whole community flows out to the streets. The women dress in black and cover their heads with "mantillas". The people of Ayacucho seem to travel back in time, their penitent faces, their heart-rending chanting in 'quecchua' give the impression that the sons of this town - 2,761 m.a.s.l. and 570 kms. from Lima - are living and feeling, in own blood, Christ's Calvary.

First page	The Celebration of holy week in Ayacucho Holy Wednesday Other Atractives