Tuna, not like the fish

Twenty kilometers or so outside Ayacucho are the ruins left by the Wari (or Huari) civilization, a pre-Inca culture that was dominant in Western Peru around AD 500-900 but went into decline even before the Inca came on the scene.

To get there you take a colectivo (shared minibus). You don't go to a bus station at a particular time to take a colectivo. You go to a paradero (stop) which is just an unofficial location from which colectivos to a particular location depart. it's not marked, but the map I got at the tourist office indicated where to go. A colectivo leaves when it's full (or as full as the driver thinks it's going to get on this trip). Toward this end, he stands around and acts as a tout for his bus. Full is a relative term. Basically they stuff as many people as can uncomfortably fit--if you're a kid, expect to sit on your parent's lap. No doubt they exceed the bounds of safety, at least by North American standards. On the up side (and this applies to me too), Peruvians are generally not large, tall people. The view from inside:


The colectivos to Wari are actually going to the town of Quinua, and even if you're just being dropped off at Wari you have to pay the full fare to Quinua (from the driver's point of view, he could have filled your seat with a full-paying customer. The fare is 5 soles ($1.80) so that didn't break the bank, but is not especially cheap by Peruvian standards.

The site has a small museum and a friendly attendant, but after that you're on your own (there was a guy hanging around offering to work as a guide, but I declined). I don't really mind that much if I don't know all the history behind a site: I sort of think of them as large-scale art installations.

In any case, what really got my attention wasn't the ruins but the cactus "forest" in which they were embedded. Most of them were prickly-pears. The fruit of this cactus is known as tuna in Spanish (what we call tuna is atun and an olive is an aceituna, in case you were wondering). These are edible, though I've never tried them, and I'm told they need to be eaten carefully. On the highway outside the site a family was selling them and cars would stop to pick some up. I even saw a couple of women harvesting them inside the site itself, using what looked like very long-handled garden shears.



Here's another tuna for you: a political party seems to have adopted it as its logo. Perhaps not an inspired choice.


The site is fairly large with well-maintained paths that are marked with the occasional arrow, so I mostly just wandered. We came here to see ruins, so here's some:



That's fine. I just didn't want to miss anything in the cactus line, so I tried following down all the forks in the path, not all of which really led anywhere. One sign promised a cueva (cave) but I walked to the end of the line and just ended up in a field, sown with some crop that I didn't recognize (I'll guess potatoes since Peru is said to have 4000 varieties).

The other thing that the site has lots of is locusts. They're fairly skittish and jump out in front of you as you walk along. I ran across one guy catching them and stuffing them into a large pop bottle. I hadn't heard of locusts being eaten in these parts so I asked him what he was catching them for. It turns out that they are eaten--by chickens.


I finished up at the ruins at about 3 or so and was going to continue on to Quinua. The trick is having a collectivo come along that isn't already full. A bit of a challenge on a Sunday, as it turns out. After waiting half an hour or so I saw that was on the way back to Ayacucho stop and let off a couple of people, so I decided to give up on Quinua for that day. The ride back cost only 3 soles...I guess in that situation a paying customer represents the difference between 0 and 3 soles not 3 and 5 soles.