During our stay in Cuenca we were lucky to be here for Cuenca Days. This year Cuenca celebrated it's 462 anniversary. She looks good for 462.
Everyone we talked to told us to check our Cuenca days, "Cuenca days is fun," "a lot happens during Cuenca days." We of course had no idea what we were supposed to be looking for....Ok, they were right, there were street markets, concerts, and parades, Cuenca days was fun!
Our first event was a night parade. The night of the event we had a choice between the parade, or a choral concert, poor Wyatt got outvoted because 3/4 wanted to check out the parade, which was schedule to begin at 7 pm....in true Ecuadorian standard time the parade began shortly after 8 pm.
The parade had a number of small military and police marching bands, and various different displays going with the theme of "Juegos y Tradiciones (Games, and Traditions)." Here is one that reminded us of that Berenstain Bears book Bears on Wheels, check it out:
Another big tradition in Cuenca is the burning of the Castle. A shop worker told us a few days earlier to come for a castle burning on Thursday night. Well, us Olsons, we are always up for a good burning....this one was pretty intense. It is apparently a tradition that takes place in Cuenca during religious and political celebrations, and this particular one, was small one, or so we heard...
Here are a few more snapshots of Cuenca Days:
Maija found some cool pottery to take home for her dolls
I was NOT going to share my cotton candy, but somehow that felt a little selfish...what do you guys think?
Close up of the castle
In the Mercados you often see people buying quail eggs, we had never tried them, so here was our chance. They tasted really good, pretty close to chicken eggs really. The kids each had to have one too. We are terribly mean, and make them try everything we try.
Quail egg vendor, 10 cents/egg.
The sign read "Support the arts in Otavalo, buy a bracelet" it was cool to see this guy weave a bracelet in around a minute.
This dish is called Japingachos. I did not know it would come with all this food. The potato part was pretty yummy, but the sausage did not look or taste too appetizing to me, so far Mercado food has always been yummy....you can't win them all.
Ok, a large part of Cuenca Days involved trying different foods....Below was a cooler of "Helados de Paila" Some street home made ice cream.
The sign read in English "they prepare a liquid with fruits of the forest, and sometimes with fresh milk.".....only sometimes?!?
For our last Saturday here in Arequipa we decided to visit the Santa Catalina Convent. The convent is located in the historic center of Arequipa and it is considered the most important and impressive colonial structure in the city. Constructed from Sillar, a white volcanic stone quarried locally, the convent was founded in 1579, and is truly a city within a city. The nuns constructed private cells within the convent where they could lead isolated lives, protected by high walls sheltering them from the surrounding city. Most museums, or tourist sites here in Peru encourage you to have a guide, normally we prefer to do it without one, but this structure was so large, and with so much history, that I am glad we opted to have a guide show us the place. One of the many alleys within the Convent. Each street within the convent is named after a Spanish city, I think this one might have been Malaga.
Monday morning we said good bye to our nice home in Cusco, and headed to Urubamba. We walked down to the paradero, and took a "colectivo" (a large 20 person van), paid our 6 soles/per person, and rode for about an hour and a half to the town of Urubamba. According to Wikipedia, Urubamaba or Urupampa in the Quechua spelling means "flat land of spiders"....poor Maija. (We didn't tell her yet... she can wait until we leave or she reads this blog post to find out). The Sacred Valley is much warmer than Cusco, and is full of flowers. A beautiful little town
So, after I went to Rainbow Mountain on Saturday, I have a few things to say about it.Pretty, and painful. If you wanted to do it while you are in Cusco, I would suggest it only if you are a strong hiker, and if you are an intermediate hiker, I would suggest getting to the first summit and sucking on Coca leaves. Maybe get help from horses, it pays off with the view at the first summit. My dad made it to the 2nd summit. The hike down is easy and it has a good view. You see a valley with random alpacas dotting the green grass. The alpacas are fairly tame, but will still run away if you approach them too fast. Some fun facts about this Mountain are: 1. Another name for Rainbow Mountain is Vinicunca. 2. When you are on the first summit of the Mountain you are closer to the Mount Everest summit than you are to Calgary. 3.There is snow on a mountain close to Vinicunca. The roads on the second half of the way there are the scariest roads ever. And we were in...
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