Today we are trying to take it easy while we get used to the altitude. We planned to visit the Museo Inka, the main Catedral, and view the Entrance of the Corpus Christi in the Plaza de Armas. All of these are either on the plaza or a block off. We started out with a leisurely breakfast at the hotel with coca tea, scrambled eggs, bread, and fruit. (We passed on the mixed fruit with strawberries because we've been warned about fruit you don't peel, but we had papaya which was very good.
Before sightseeing, we went to some hiking shops on a narrow lane right off the plaza that we'd seen the day before. I wanted to buy a long sleeve t-shirt. All my shirts are short sleeved and I needed something in between that and my fleece. We've been watching the weather on our iphones for the last month and I'm looking at weather.com right now and it says mid 60s low and mid 80s to 90s high. But it just hasn't felt that warm. Today I finally checked google's weather and it's saying high of 70 and lows in the 30s. That sounds more like what it feels like! Anyway, I needed another layer. But most of the stores were still closed (it was 10:30).
So then we went back to the plaza and decided to sit in the sun while we waited until 11am when the Entrance was supposed to happen.
We sat on the stairs of the main cathedral. When we first got there, there weren't a lot of people, but it began filling up and so we were pretty sure we were in the right place for the Traditional Entrance of the Festivities of the Cuzquenan Corpus Christi. The festival of Corpus Christi is tomorrow, but today the saints are supposed to parade into the plaza and go into the catedral, where they spend the night to await the procession tomorrow. This festival is the biggest one of the year in Cuzco.
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| Nita on stairs of catedral: don't I look saint-like? |
But nothing happened. After a while we heard a band and we saw a procession go past a corner off the plaza, but it didn't come to the plaza and it was pretty short. We heard bands playing in the distance a couple of times. Then around noon, we saw a procession with two saints go by the side of the plaza, where we could see them, but they went past and besides, we thought there were supposed to be more saints than that. (It turns out there are 15).
But by then, we didn't think we could stand to wait for the rest. We went back to the hotel for lunch and sat on the balcony so if more came, we could see them. But still nothing happened. We decided we needed naps (so far we've just had drowsiness and a little head-achiness from the altitude). We laid down and we could hear bands coming onto plaza, but we really needed naps. (And we're getting good at sleeping with bands going!)
After about 45 minutes, we got up and went down to the plaza and at last the saints were proceeding into the Plaza de Armas, up the steps of the catedral, and inside. (Are you sensing a pattern here? Things do not seem to start promptly at their starting time and go way longer than we expect.)
The saints come from all the parishes in the area, some as far away as 15 kilometers. The groups take a year to prepare their saints and train to carry them on litters from their churches to the catedral. We think that the saints were parading around the streets and gathering to one starting place before proceeding into the plaza and that's why it took them so long to get here.
Here's a photo of Saint Sebastian. I don't know if you can tell how hard his bearers were working. They had replacements going alongside to take care of any who needed to rest. There may have been as many as 20 men holding the litter at one time. And they had to carry him up the catedral steps and up more steps into the church.
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| Saint Sebastian |
This is the back of the gorgeous gown of one of the virgen saints. It sort of reminded me of fiesta in San Antonio.
Each saint had banners and parishioners going before them and behind them was their own band. So there was lots of loud music the whole time.
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| Virgen and Child |
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| Going through the door of the catedral |
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| Another saint |
We decided we'd seen enough even though the saints were still coming. We went back to the hiking stores and this time I found a workable long sleeve tshirt. Sandra also found an alpaca sweater she liked.
Then we went to the Museo Inka. It's housed in an old colonial mansion. The mansion itself was pretty impressive.
Inside were lots of artifacts from various periods of pre-Columbian cultures and models of various places like Machu Picchu. They also had some skulls that showed that some of the nobility deformed their skulls, elongating them, to show status. There was also evidence in some skulls that trepanning was practiced. From some skulls, it was clear the person died shortly after the procedures, but in others, there was bone remodeling that showed the person had survived a while after. There was also a display of mummies.
In the courtyard, there were women weaving and also woven items for sale. They were very beautiful (and very expensive).
We went back to the hotel and had another cup of coca tea. I can't tell that it perks me up in any way, but it's a pleasant herbal tea. We washed some clothes and read until time for dinner (we'd decided today wasn't a good day to visit the catedral).
We had dinner at a place called Inka Grill. I had Aji de Gallina, which is chicken with a sauce of aji chilis (not too spicy). Sandra had Quinotto with Chicken ( a chicken with sauce over quinoa and veggies). Both were very good. We also split a pisco sour. We're worried about alcohol until we adjust to the altitude, but they had the sour with the passion fruit infused pisco that we liked so much before. This was equally good. We had lava cake for dessert.
As I write this at 8:30, the bands in the plaza are still going strong. We hope this festival doesn't go on all night!
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