Festivals....

I know it hasn´t even been a day- but the festivals were pretty impactful so I thought I should record it. Alfonso picked me up with his nephew and we took a taxi to the first one. It was pouring rain and we ran to this church where the procession would take place (they were religious festivals). We pushed our way through hundreds of people to make our way to the front of the church so we could see the virgin that was being honored. It was a huge statue that they would pick up on their shoulders and carry out.. Alfonso told me it weighed more then 3 tons- no idea how close that was but about 50 men carried it out. After that we pushed our way back out of the church to get a taxi to the next festival.

The next festival was that times 500... TONS of people and we missed the honoring of the virgin in that town... but we got there to see the dancing. Groups of traditional dancers traveled from all over south america to honor this virgin... and they all had bright costumes. I´ve never been so close to so many people. This event tested just about all of my patience... I was SO close to SO many people... a few times I was worried we would all fall over. There were lots of masks in the procession... which I LOVE. Alfonso thought it was so great so I couldn´t tell him that i have a phobia of masks... as you will see in one of my pictures. We watched a parade of the dancing as it was pouring rain- we bought panchos.. but were soaked.

To top it off Alfonso decided we should try traditional food at a festival... perfect. My first sampling of Coy... guinea pig. Not only that, but there was whole parts of chicken, sausage, some bread made of corn, fish eggs, alge, beef... you name it- it was there. Luckily I didn´t get a plate... I just sampled off of Alfonso´s.... PRAY I DON´T GET SICK!!!! ha ha- I guess we only live once and my theory is that if you are going to be somewhere you must live as the people live. As you can see they serve guinea pigs whole.... head, feet... it´s there. You should have seen these peruvians tear that thing up..... Mmmmm!

So there you have it.. again you must see pictures to do justice to this experience. Now I´m wet and cold and waiting to go home to eat....AGAIN. Ish... I can´t keep up with this.