Today is a Catholic holiday that people in the Cusco region celebrate by dressing up in costumes and dancing, and by drinking liberally for the next few days. I went out to Chinchero today, where the largest celebration for this holiday is held. It began last night with a parade, and then continued this morning with a mass in the most opulent church I've ever been inside-- 16th century colonial church, how awesome!
This is Adrienne, in case you were curious...
Adrienne and I took a bus out to Chinchero, toured the CTTC HQ there and were shooed up the hill towards the church. It was so crowded that Adrienne and I decided to talk a walk to the Chinchero Inca Ruins and wait to go inside until after mass began to empty out. For today, halfway down the steps was quite enough, especially since we weren't used to the altitude up there.
Had lunch in the market square and found myself a new hat to replace the one I lost, then I headed back up the hill to see the dancing.
The dancers come out in groups, each with their own small band, and dance for what seems like an unspecified amount of time. Each group represents a myth or an important historical event or an important person/group of people. There were clowns running about in knitted masks, being ridiculous and chasing people in full body monkey costumes.... And whenever a group was finished dancing outside the church, they meandered their way down the mountain with their band to a family's house (a family of one of the members of their group) to eat and drink and keep dancing.
I left around 4pm, as everyone was headed to the private houses for food. I usually taxi back from Chinchero to Cusco, as the buses (colectivos) run more irregularly, but the only one I found was already full in the seating area and I ended up ridding back in the trunk. **Please note: Most taxis here are hatchback cars with trunks that are open to the rest of the interior. For long drives, they fill these taxi's excessively--driver plus 2 in the front passenger seat, 4 in the back seat, and 2 in the trunk area.
When we got back to Cusco, I had to walk home from the Puente Grau (the Grau bridge). It took about 20min. By this point I was feeling my day. I was going to go back today, however I think I caught a cold over the course of the day.... Some combination of Danitza telling me that morning that everyone at my Spanish school was getting sick, stress of traveling to and from, the higher altitude, and fried (but tasty) food for lunch. Went to bed around 8pm with a mild fever and plan to spend the next few days recovering.
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