Guinea Pigs and Hot Chilies - Festival of Festivals



Pre-Corpus Christi



Interesting  Winter  Attire

First Chiriuchu we saw

Big Pomegranates

Traditional fresh fruit market including coconut and sugar cane

Huge Fruit (Pomegranate and Chirimoya)

Inside the Chirimoya

Cute little urpi

Corpus Christi Cusqueno

A "Real" Ekeko

Your typical Peruvian clown...

Chiriuchu spread

Chiriuchu Station

 

Eskimoes???

At least twenty roasted Guinea Pigs

Getting ready for the vote

Float #1

Raquel without the pink suited man

Spiderman in Cusco

Especially loved the gold tooth

Assessing the goods

Roof-dog

 

 

Cusco has been in even fuller fiesta mode this week. The central plaza and even the smaller plazas around town have had big happenings. There are parades, dances and food everywhere. On Tuesday Julie went to work in the morning as Rich had his Quechua class and we knew that the archives would be closed for Corpus Christi celebrations on Thursday. We made a lot of headway and are working on some easier books for a while. Thank goodness.

Wednesday night we went to see a movie in the new theater at the mall. We started to get in the long snaking line to buy our tickets when a man who works at the theater asked us if we were buying tickets. We said “yes” and he moved us to another line where there were only two people in front of us. We couldn’t quite figure it out… because we were “gringo’s” we thought? We had a good laugh when we saw the sign “Preferential” sign and the drawings underneath with a mother and her child, a pregnant woman and a bent over old man and woman with canes.  Ah ha! We’re “old” so we get to use the special line! Julie blamed Rich with his bald head, but she got the discount for 60 and over! At least we don’t have to wait in the big lines at the theater any more, good to know and saved $0.65US, whoopee! The same doesn’t seem to apply to buying popcorn however. We stood in a line to pay for our popcorn and drinks, and then we had to go to another line to wait while our order was filled. It was, all in all a fun and entertaining evening. The theater is brand spanking new  here!

We stopped at the grocery store in the plaza after the movie and picked up a nice, free official book/guide to the Fiestas del Cusco 2014. They had just arrived the day before, June 17th, and the first official happening for all of these fiestas was May 13th. Only a month late…

On Thursday we were sure that all of Cusco was in the Plaza de Armas. Of course we had to go and see what all the fuss was about. Corpus Christi is huge in Cusco, and the church bells were lovely to hear ringing.

They carry Fifteen saints and virgins from various districts in a procession to the Cathedral where they "greet" the body of Christ embodied in the Sacred Host, kept in a fabulous gold goblet weighing 26 kilos and standing 1.2 meters high.

Sixty days after Easter Sunday, the members of each nearby church bear their patron saint in a procession to the chimes of the María Angola, Peru's largest church bell, forged in a copper-gold alloy in the sixteenth century. At dawn the procession sets off around the main square, bearing the images of five virgins clad in richly embroidered tunics, plus the images of four saints: Sebastian, Blas, Joseph and the Apostle Santiago (Saint James) mounted on a beautiful white horse.

Then the saints enter the Cathedral to receive homage, after which representatives and authorities from various communities of Cuzco meet in the main square to discuss local affairs. Finally, the delegations return to the churches amidst hymns and prayers.

It was quite the spectacle and we even were brave enough to try the Chiriuchu “chiri” – cold and “uchu” – chili in Quechua. The Chiriuchu is a traditional meal served only during the Corpus Christi celebration. It brings together the different regions of Cuzco. It contains cold foods that stem from the various regions nearby, the cheeses from the high Altiplano, the corn from the Sacred Valley, or the sea weed and roe from the ocean. We ate cooked, cold pieces of chicken, pork, guinea pig, seaweed, fish eggs, sausages, toasted/popped corn, cheese and cornbread served with a plate of sliced rocoto (a spicy chili). The cornbread that they call a tortilla is similar to cornbread in the states but is fried with lots of green onion mixed in. Everyone eats this meal with their fingers and while we liked the chicken, pork and guinea pig, we couldn’t figure out what all the excitement was about this meal and decided one time was enough and we certainly shouldn’t have to try it again next year!

We were astounded at the number of stalls set up to serve this traditional meal. We estimated that in one plaza there must have been 10,000 cuys, (guinea pigs) roasted and ready to sell. One of the young missionaries here told our mission president’s wife that one has to be careful when eating cuy because people try to sell you roasted rat instead. We had a good laugh over that because we’ve seen dead rats here and they are puny in comparison to a roasted guinea pig. Mission legends live on! When someone tries to sell you something that is not what it purports to be here, they say that they are giving you “cat for rabbit.” They joke occasionally that guinea pig is a rat with no tail but no one can actually mistakes a rat for a guinea pig.

Friday we stayed out of the center and worked quietly in the archives. While we enjoyed a quiet evening at home the fireworks started. Julie remembered reading in the guide that there were going to be fireworks in the plaza. We opened our living room curtains and had a perfect view! It was a wonderful way to watch them in the quiet of our apartment. We could hear the little kids in the next apartment building cheering and oohing over the show, they were really cute.

The local fine arts school makes a grand show on the Saturday before Inti Raymi. They hold a parade that involves the preparation of large papier-mâché floats that tell stories. Their word for these is allegorical cars. No cars are involved, rather carts made to be pulled. Those who build the carts then pull them in the parade. Honestly about as many show up for this as for Corpus Christi. We ran into a friend of ours, Raquel, who works at the school. Raquel was all decked out to dance in the parade and while we took her picture a man dashed up. In heavily Eastern European accented English he asked if Rich would take his picture with Raquel. Rich did and the man gave her a dollar and dashed off… Sadly we did not have the presence of mind to take his picture with her… We do not exaggerate when we tell you that he wore a blazingly pink suit and red shoes. Not sure we would have been more taken aback had he been the Mad Hatter.