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| Corpus Christi Festival-One of the Seven "Floats" from various churches |
Wow! We only had five hours in Cusco, but what an amazing five hours! Thankfully I had time to write about it before heading into the jungle.
Our driver from Urubamba to Cusco wasn't Luis as we had hoped. It was a nice gentleman named Christabel. He was very friendly and his English was about as limited as Luis. He delivered us to the Palacio del Inka, which is the sister property of the Tambo del Inka, where we stored our bags.
The hotel is located on the edge of the "historic district" so it is a short five minute walk to the cities main plaza, the Plaza de Armas. It was a huge plaza surrounded by churches, shops and restaurants. We enjoyed checking it out for a few minutes before heading to an area just a few blocks off the plaza that the concierge at the hotel suggested. On our way up the street we met a small parade of dancers, a marching band and around 20 young men struggling to carry what was obviously a very heavy statue of what appeared to be a saint. We enjoyed watching the procession pass us on a street so narrow the crowd could only be one person deep. We didn't give it much thought other than thinking to ourselves, "that was nice". We had no idea what was to come!
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| We weren't sure what was going on at this point. This was the first parade which was actually a parade to get down to the parade route |
As we made our way back down towards the Plaza de Armas we noticed the crowds in and around the plaza were growing. The party was just beginning!
As we rounded the corner we ran into the first of three festivals all taking place on the same day in the same area. This festival was "National Potato Day". Yeah, it may not sound like much to most people but there are over 1,500 varieties of potatoes in Peru. That's something worth celebrating. Some were easily recognizable as potatoes while others didn't look like any potato we had ever seen. I'm not sure they had all 1,500+ varieties on display but there were a whole lot of them.
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| National Potato Day........yeah baby! |
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| A few of the different types of potatoes on display. We heard at the airport that there was also a potato growers convention going on. Who knew there was such a thing? |
As we moved up the street we ran into the most interesting of the three festivals, the Festival del Chiriuchu. To those not familiar with this dish, you're certainly not alone, we had no idea what it was either. Chiriuchu is a dish consisting of corn covered with chicken, a meat similar to jerky, sausage and Guinea Pig. For good measure it is topped off with a regional cheese and a type of bread that looked similar to cornbread. There were hundreds of booths set up all serving this dish. Outside the booths all the food was on display. Of course for us one item stood out, baked Guinea Pigs. They were everywhere. Sometimes displayed in stacks, sometimes decorated but always with their little Guinea Pig teeth sticking out. I'm sure it tastes like chicken but we opted for lunch at a restaurant that had been recommended by the concierge.
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| Baked Guinea Pigs |
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| A festively dressed little baked critter |
As we made our way up the street towards our final destination, the market, the crowds had grown. It now looked like all 500,000+ residents of Cusco had made it to the plaza and that they had brought someone with them. The Festival of Corpus Christi was introduced by the Spanish in an effort to replace the Incan Festival of Inti Raymi. From what I understand the Festival of Inti Raymi which is held in June is still going strong, so now there are two major festivals held within a few weeks of each other. We were fortunate enough to be here on the day it was taking place.
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| Corpus Christi Parade.......following in Dad's footsteps! |
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| Dance troupe in the parade. Those are stuffed Alpaca's on their backs. |
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| Big crowds were on hand |
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| Dancer in the parade |
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| Members of the marching band had the music on their backs for the guy behind them |
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| It took a lot of effort for these young men to keep moving down the street. |
We weren't quite sure what we were seeing but there were bands, dancers in festive costumes, huge statue floats that had been brought from various churches throughout the area. The floats looked very heavy and took 20-30 men to carry them. The crowds were huge, the atmosphere was festive and it was great to see this part of the Peruvian culture!
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| Plaza de Armas before the start of the parade |
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| A Cuban Sandwich from Moderna...........it could hold it's on with any of the Tampa Cubans. |
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| Peruvian Stir Fry |
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| Churros for desert! |
