Nine Thousand Feet Up and Counting...

Greeting from Ayacucho. I'm at about 9,000 feet in the Andes, surrounded by green, craggy mountains, topped with snow and clouds. It's like being on top of the world.

We took an early morning flight, delayed because of fog and rain in the Andes, finally arriving at about 8:30am. The plane was a two-propeller, small jet, holding about 15 people. I love flying in small aircraft. When we finally left the ground, it felt as though we were yanked up by a string, climbing higher and higher, bouncing around the clouds, weaving amidst the mountains.

Upon arrival, we were retrieved by WFP staff, who advised us that, for security reasons, we must go straight to the hotel, and stay there, until told otherwise - as there were strong protests in the center square (across from our hotel) by the transportation unions, which were expected to turn violent. So we slept...

The afternoon was spent at WFP's offices in Ayacucho, meeting the staff, and local partners, who run the programs we'll be visiting over the next few days. Most of the programs center around rebuilding communities which were displaced and/or destroyed during the civil war in the 80s; Ayacucho was the founding city for the Shining Path, who terrorized inidigenous villages throughout the region. WFP is now helping them come back to their land, combinig ancient cultural rituals with contemporary know-how, to help cultivate their land, build houses, and provide nutritional education for mothers, throughout their pregnancies and then through child-rearing.

Tomorrow we'll visit a series of tiny villages at 14,000 feet.

I've been drinking matte de coca, and have just broken down to purchase some altitude sickness meds from the local farmacia.

Onward ho!