Move over Mummers. Here comes Candelaria!

On February 8-10 David and I went east to Puno, right on Lake Titicaca, for one of the largest festivals in Peru.  Called Festividad de La Virgin de Candelaria, it is a religious holiday that goes on for about 2 weeks.  Dance, bands and marching groups from all over Peru come for the celebration which involves carrying the statue of the Virgin through the streets and about 80 groups of about 60-70 people each parading through the city from early morning to late at night.  For those who know Philadelphia, it is like the Mummer's Parade Squared.   For David it was a bit overwhelming as he could not figure out a schedule, a parade route or any sort of organization.  We kept getting conflicting information about when and where the parades would be.  And then once we heard the music we quickly figured out that the reason we got conflicting information was because there was no real schedule or logic.  That being said...it was quite wonderful.

However, everyone kept saying that Puno was very cold and we didn't believe them.  PUNO WAS FREEZING! and it rained every night, our room had no heat (no place in Peru does) and we had no hot water (or a window in our room, for that matter).  We still had a good time, but do like Arequipa better!

Interestingly enough, during the dancing and parading we saw on Sat., Sunday and Monday each band played the same tune, but a different one based on the day.  And the vendors sold beer during the day and bottles of coke tapped to bottles of rum at night!  All the dancers carried their beer with them!  They also sold watermelon, ice cream and jello!

       And lots of candles for lighting in the church.    

You won't see these ladies in the Mummer's Parade!

       David liked these ladies, but why isn't he smiling?  Here are "my guys".

   We love looking at the old people on the streets!         The music was wonderful!  A real mix of traditional and new, with enough sousaphones and bass drums to make us deaf!             What was a riot was that there was no one directing traffic and very few streets blocked off.  However, the paraders followed no route and groups that we saw in one part of town in the morning, we saw a few hours later in another part of town.  meanwhile different groups were in other parts of town.  The only thing we could think of was that each group went were the traffic dictated, because we did see groups start down a street, then turn onto a side street when they saw cars coming.  But the seeming chaos added to the charm!   This whole troupe was a bit weird! Isn't David a good photographer?       Puno itself is a smallish city in southern Peru, about a 6 hour bus ride from Arequipa, with about 100,000 people at 12,500 feet which is higher than Arequipa.  Luckily we were nota ffected by the altitude, because Arequipa is at 7500 feet.  David is in love with these mototaxi's and finally got  a chance to ride in one.   Our square is nicer than the one in Puno, but they do have two big ones.  This church, on the square was where all the Virgin celebration started.