We hummed and hawed about whether to go check out this festival that Roberta had heard about. We couldn't really find much information on the web about it, but finally decided we should check it out.
It took us a couple hours to drive the winding road to the little colonial town of Paucartambo. There were many children on the sides of the road begging for money along the way which was quite sad. They knew that there were going to be a lot of vehicles driving by that day.
We had no expectations for the festival. All we knew was it was for one of the many virgens in the Catholic religion. We found a place a park and started walking around.
As we walked around more and more people started to show up. We made our way over to the church where there was a statue of the Virgen Del Carmen.
As you can see, many people gathered around it taking pictures.
We were standing on the steps of the church when we heard some music in the distance and the crowds in the streets really began to gather.
Then we noticed the crowd was splitting very quickly if front of some masked men that were whipping the street and litterly whipping people that wouldn't move! We were lucky enough to be in the front row to catch the action.
Aside from whipping the street and anyone not moving fast enough out of the way, they were also dancing and have whip offs with eachother. We were quite surprised seeing this all the first time.
About 15 mins after the first guys left a new procession made its way towards us. This time with some people on horses. There was a couple of "whip men" at the front clearing the crowd as we soon found out was there main job for the day.
What ended up happening is that there was a different procession of people every 15 mins or so throughout the day. Each one with different costumes and masks as well as their own band accompanying them. Each procession also had its own dance. We later learned that each one of the dances corresponds to a certain reinactment of the past.
For example this one was for the importance of the bakers to provide food for the people.
These guys supposedly would run across the roofs at night to tempt women into committing adultery.
And of course some of the processions had llamas or alpacas in them. We are in South America, so it would be weird if there wasn't. At one point in the day there was a llama on a balcony, and some guys were pouring beer down its throat. The rules are a little more fuzzy around here on what's acceptable.
As I said all the processions were accompanied by a band. These included violins, guitars, pan flutes, horn instruments, and many more instruments.
Apparently these crazy animal masks represent demons of the past.
I really liked being so close to the action. This meant sometimes we were a little too close and I got whipped in the leg once and another time a whip grazed my lips!
These guys represented the drunk Spanish landowners.
My beard definitely got grabbed a few times that day.
A few masks for sale.
Parading around the main square as the sun sets.
We had talked earlier in the day about heading out and camping near the jungle for the night to see the sunrise in a special spot, but we were having so much fun that we decided to stay.
Little did we know that once the sun went down, things were about to get even crazier.
In the main square, some guys ran around dumping piles of straw in the corners. And then they proceeded to light them on fire and run through the fire! They would also grab random people from the crowd and force them to run through even if they didn't want to. They seemed to really like the screaming ladies. Like I said things are a bit different down here. They were also lifting terrified little children through the flames....
We had a front row view again.
Once the flames had died down, some guys started running through the crowd with fireworks! They were literally going off right over our heads. It was so ridiculously unsafe, and one of those things you would never see at home.
As a grand finale, there was 3 large bamboo stands that they lit up right in the middle of the crowd. They were set up as certain fireworks went off, they would light the next closest ones. It was quite the show. I took a few pictures to remember but wanted to see this craziness with my own eyes and not through my phone screen.
It was a day full of color, costumes, music, beers, fire, fireworks, and general danger. It was awesome as luckily we escaped unscathed. We felt very fortunate to be two of only a handful of other foreigners there. Yet another positive of having our own vehicle.
That night we slept in the vehicle and there were tents set up all over the place.
Trying to get out of the town the next day was quite a nightmare but it was all worth it. The organization of these events are not what they could be, but that also adds to the experience and the craziness.
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