Inti Raymi and other festivities

So we spent 2.5 weeks in Cusco, studying, trekking, eating and meeting a ton of Israelis. As I mentioned before, most everybody falls in love with Cusco and ends up staying there for a while. The Beit Chabad probably hosts one of the largest numbers of people in South America. This is also why Cusco becomes a meeting point of all the ¨waves¨ in South America. A word about waves...

In Israeli backpacker jargon, there are 2 main ¨galim¨ (waves) travelling in South America. The southbound one (gal hayored) and the northbound one (gal haoleh). We would fall under the southbound wave since we started out in Peru and made our way south to Bolivia and then Argentina. The waves roughly move on at the same speed so that once you meet someone from a specific wave, you assume the others can´t be too long in joining him. In addition to these main waves, there are those amusing ones that people make up themselves-gal hamitakeiv (the delayed wave) for those who keep getting stuck in a place, gal hamebulbal (the confused wave) for those who change their direction in the middle etc. etc.

At some point during our stay in Cusco, we met a lot of northbound Israelis who brought back appalling reports of Bolivia: the people are rude and not so bright, it´s very dirty, everything gets delayed, cholas pee on the street, everyone gets salmonella etc. etc. all of which made me very unenthusiastic to move on south. In fact, there was a point when I seriously considered leaving Cusco before Inti Raymi and flying out to Argentina. In the end, slightly reluctantly, I stayed and made it to Bolivia. We discovered there was some truth to the reports we heard, but I also had some wonderful experiences there so I can´t say I regretted going. But again, getting ahead of myself. Back to Peru.

What you see above is the official flag of Cusco which is prominently displayed everywhere in the city. Gay pride parades were not on the agenda, but there were plenty of other colorful events going on during our stay. For example, Cusco Day. Which you would expect to last, well, a day. But why waste such a precious festivity opportunity in 24 hours only when you can have Cusco Day for a whole week??? And so it was that while I was running around between Beit Chabad and my Spanish classes, I would see different age groups parading around the city every day for a full week. They started off with the kindergarten children, which I unfortunately missed and moved on until university students. Since there´s a lot of Inti Raymi pictures to go through, I´ll only post one picture from these festivities.

All these dancing people made it very difficult to move around in the city, not the least because one couldn´t help stopping to watch them. We soon discovered though that all this was nothing compared to the biggest of them all, the incredible tourist magnet, the festival of the sun: Inti Raymi. For one thing, it was ridiculously crowded which allowed one to freely take pictures of the cholas (which I had promised you would be forthcoming). Here´s a typical cholah, with her bundle on her back. Do try and ignore the cell phone.

That hat hanging behind her conceals a baby. They have a special method to wrap up the baby and swing it around to their backs which is a scary, scary sight to the uninitiated tourist. I kept expecting to see a baby fly off during the process or slip from its little trap afterwards, but I guess they know what they´re doing. This is how they feed them:

The cholas typically have 2 braids of long hair hanging behind their back:

though not all tye them together. The other predominantly chola feature is their gigantic skirts, but you will have to wait until I write up Bolivia for a picture of that. On to Inti Raymi...

The festivities started off in the main square of Cusco-Plaza de Armas. The plaza was packed with people on the sides, behind police barriers. There were a lot of different parader groups in different colors, as well as an almost naked group. The last parader to pass us portrayed, we think, the sun god.

Then it was time for everyone to climb Sacsayhuaman, a nearby hill with Inka Ruins, in order to watch the rest of the festivities from the side. One has to pay an exorbitant amount to sit around the main stage so most backpackers and locals opt to climb the hills surrounding the spectacle. Maybe this will give you an idea of the number of people:

There were plenty of street vendors along the way, selling anything from memorabilia to street food. We decided to try freshly squeezed cane juice,

but were not too impressed with it. The other ¨delicacy¨ on sale, everywhere, was the guinea pig. The sight of it is enough to make any carnivore consider vegetarianism.

It was quite a challenge to find a spot on top of the hills with a good view. Some people took to the trees.

Our view was mainly obscured and we didn`t understand anything of what was going on. In fact, I think the same went for all the Peruvians around us since at some point something happened which drew much more attention than the festivities. There was a lot of police around the event, trying to keep people away from getting too close to the spectacle. Specifically, the hill directly opposite from us was blocked. At some point, an excursion of a few people managed to break the police cordon and ran ahead. The police promptly brought them back and attention was returned to the festivities. A few minutes later though, a new group made an attempt and suceeded, opening the way for many others to rush in. Here´s how the hill looked after this assault:

and only a few seconds later:

and after the last stages of the conquest:

while back at the festivities, this is what was going on:

It was definitely an interesting experience although I doubt I would have thought it worth waiting the 2.5 weeks if I hadn´t done other things in the meantime. At any rate, we were ready to move on and so said goodbye to Cusco that very night. On to Bolivia in the next post.