Paucartambo Festival Fun - By Steve

Last week here in the Cusco region was the festival at Paucartambo about four hours from Cusco, with the principal day on July 16th. A couple of us managed to make it out of the office to join in with some of the festivities. Paucartambo is a picturesque but quiet place situated in a valley above the eastern jungles 115km from Cusco.

The annual Fiesta de la Virgen del Carmen is a colorful mix of Andean pre-Columbian ceremonies and Catholic religion in which masked, costumed dancers relive ancient gods and rites. The festivities include a procession of the Virgin carried through the streets of the town while dancers advance and retreat in the never ending battle between the forces of good and evil.

The drama and costumes make for a fantastic festival with general good humor all round. Lack of accommodation however means that any space on the floor of a house or building crammed in with other revelers is most welcome. With such basic facilities we felt one night was enough.
The Virgen del Carmen is the patron saint of Paucartambo, where streets of white colonial buildings topped with red roofs are the setting for the dancing and merriment. Regional dance groups, each with their own musical accompaniment, perform during the procession, re-enacting historical events and folktales.

One of the traditional activities of the Paucartambo festival is a pre-dawn visit to the heights of Tres Cruces, some 3 hours by car from the town. At this unique spot we looked down from the final peaks of the Andes onto the vast expanse of the Amazon basin. The view is unforgettable.

The Incas held this place sacred for the uncanny optical effects that appear during sunrise at certain times of the year (notably May, June & July). Owing to atmospheric distortion observers can sometimes see multiple suns, haloes, or a brilliant rosy glow covering land and sky. Unfortunately this year cloud cover made the sunrise less than impressive!

Recovering after Inti Raymi - by Ann Marie

Looking around the Peruvian city of Cusco today (where we have our office) you wouldn’t know that if you had been on tour here less than a month ago you could barely move through the central streets. For days on end the main square, the Plaza de Armas, was crowded out, and I mean solid, with locals and tourists from around the world, drawn to the centre of town to join in the celebrations. What was once banned by the Catholic Church as a pagan ritual is now one of the largest festival in South America – Inti Raymi, the celebration of the winter solstice and the beginning of a new year.

The actual day of Inti Raymi falls on 24th June. Since the festival celebrates the winter solstice it should vary by a day or two, but it doesn´t and the centre of Cusco is packed out for days before and after anyway. Huge models of the various saints are carried round and round the Plaza de Armas from morning til night, preceded and followed by marching bands, groups of folk dancers who never seem to run out of energy, and vast numbers of spectators, both local and foreign.You can tell who has never been on holiday here before and who makes a point of going every year.

The locals watch the proceedings with eagle-eyed concentration – you just know they are marking everyone out of ten on their performance. The newbies have their cameras glued to their faces, or have forgotten them entirely and are watching the whole thing with the same look of wonder as a five year old might regard the unopened presents on Christmas morning.The week culminates in a lavish performance at Sacsayhuaman, the Inca-built fortress which broods on the hill above its protégé, the city of Cusco, Peru.

The original ceremony involved the sacrifice of a white llama, but this is now rather frowned upon, so they act it out instead. From a distance you probably wouldn’t know the difference, apart from the lack of blood spatter blown on the wind. In Inca times the pattern of the aforementioned blood spatter was closely scrutinized by the priests in order to foretell what lay in the Inca’s future over the coming year. Sadly you can’t do this with fake blood, so everyone just hopes for the best.

Get out here for next year maybe and experince it for yourself, but if you do decide to come to Cusco at Inti Raymi make your arrangements with us a while in advance, it will be packed.

New Blog and Office

This blogging is all new to us, and so we launch ourselves into the 21st century and via this blog we will be telling you what we are up to, something on news and current affairs regarding Peru and anything else we hear about in Latin America that might be of interest to our current and future tourists, and anyone else who might be interested.

We have moved offices to a better location in Cusco recently. The new place is much brighter, more modern and has a much better location near to the banks and supermarkets. It is also only 10 minutes walk from the central, historic center of Cusco where all of the hotels and restaurants are to be found. The photo shows me (Gary), Steve, Steph and Anna slaving over hot computers and phones, designing your tours in the travel sales department. The operations people are stuck down in the dungeon making sure everything works while you are here (we let them out occasionally when they have been good!).

You can see more of our photos on our facebook page by visiting http://www.escapedtoperu.com/

Talking about things working, random strikes are continuing here in Peru but the effects are limited on the majority of tourists as most fly between major cities. The strike today is a national transport strike which is having a very limited effect judging by the fact that an increasing number of taxis that are circulating within the city of Cusco and in other cities we can see on the TV. Localized and regional strikes are ebbing and flowing, with people protesting over water privatization, mining revenues, education issues etc. some of the protests are warranted (in my opinion) on issues such as the level of traffic fines which are ridiculous for example. Most are unwaranted I feel because people in the countryside are poorly educated and do not understand the issues and are missled by local and regional leaders who are paid off by destabalizing influences ! Again this is just my opinion.

This striking unfortunately is a yearly occurance and to be honest we get used to it and plan tours to avoid problems where we can or fly people around blockades. We will keep you updated with strike info......