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.
Well, it is almost December. Now you are probably thinking about Christmas, because it is only 26 days away today. To me it seems closer and at the same time further because it is 3 houses away. Close, but far. We went to see The Crimes Of Grindelwald in Spanish. It was really cool. I would not recommend going to that theatre in Cusco, it was small and stuffy. Also it was a mall. Chinook centre kind of. Not so big! I would suggest just turning on Spanish subtitles in you own home. If you know me, you know how much I love Harry Potter movies and books, so of course I am going to end up getting myself the play script when it doesn't cost $81.51 so I can see what happened because I didn't really understand very much in the Spanish movie... 😠It costs SO much! We went to some Catacombs yesterday. We were not able to take any pictures of the bones, but it was really cool. We saw he...
Another site on our Boleto Touristico is the Centro Qosqo de Arte Nativo . This is a theater which performs traditional dances from various cultures around the Cusco area. They have a live band providing music, which play all sorts of traditional instruments, including flutes, violins, guitars, and mandolins. The dancers wear traditional outfits from the area in which the dance originated. The same dancers perform each song - I can only imagine how fast they need to change in between acts! I took a couple of videos during the performance... the quality is not great but it hopefully gives you a feel of what the experience is like.
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