There is, in Peru, a festival for what seems like every day of the year. Somehow, through a combination of the Inca trail for a week mid our stay, various trips to doctors for needless medications, or the necessity to stay in for the duration of various sickness bugs, or simply our own schedule of wanting to do everything there is in and around Cusco, we have not, until now, actually been to one. That's OK though, because in these last few days, we go to three.
The festival of Santa Ana is in honour of Jesus' Grandmother, the mother of Mary, who as far as I am aware is not mentioned in the Bible, but perhaps appears in the apocrypha. Certainly she is a key figure in the catholic calendar.
We walk up a gravity defying hill to the small church of Santa Ana, which has a small square outside it, and a beautiful view over Cusco. There is a sense of happy merriment, reminding me of the sort of atmosphere you might get at a wedding, or a large family party for a significant birthday. There are mini football tables, games in which you throw a stone onto a square marked with a certain number, like a sort of blunt flat game of darts but with a chess like dart board, and a small trampoline construct for the children, along with a small roundabout with horses. Lining the square are various foodstuffs, smelling overwhelmingly like a roast chicken dinner, fittingly for Sunday, and consisting of potatoes, small rounds of soufflé, and roasted whole guinea pig, chicken or piglet, and fried sausages. There is also a man carrying a long pole adorned with toffee apples of various flavours and colours. Everyone is drinking Cusqueño beer out of big bottles, and, apart from one particular group of men, people are pleasantly happy, but not overly drunk. The method for drinking beer, seems to be to have one plastic cup and drink out of it in turn, shaking the foam out of the bottom of the cup in between.
We have timed it well, because just as we arrive a matching band strikes up, and we have learned that this signifies something beginning. Sure enough, behind the marching band a group of dancing girls in traditional costume enter the square and swirl and dip, waving their handkerchiefs (in fact more like a pair of pom poms tied together), for all the world as though it wasn't incredibly hot and devoid of shade.
As soon as the dance is over they dissipate and head, as we have, for the square inches of shade afforded by the wall of the church.
Their place is taken by a group of men in traditional dress, wearing white balaclavas which we believe signify a pilgrimage and proceed to perform a dance which we have seen before, at the Centre de Arte de qosco, earlier in our visit. It involves a lot of whip cracking around the legs of the men, pairs of men taking turns to whip or be whipped. We have wondered if this relates to the Spanish arrival, and their regime which involved whipping as a punishment particularly for non Spanish people who failed to 'assimilate'. Perhaps UKIP could incorporate this in their next manifesto.
Either way I note that this dance, with its clowning and whipping and general tomfoolery (one of the masked dancers pulls the mayor into the ring for a turn at the whipping/being whipped contest, which causes much hilarity and during which the mayor, luckily shows great fortitude and good humour) is given rather more time and enthusiasm than any of the other dances.
After this, however, everything turns rather more serious, and I note how seamlessly it is possible here, for something to be both reverent and deeply felt - and hugely exuberant and joyful. I try to think of an example of this seamless mixture in England and cannot. We seem to be rather more ordered in our emotions, the exuberance and symbolism being made to take turns.
Here, the mood is not changed, but simply added to by the appearance of the huge and beautiful, highly ornate statue of Santa Ana herself, surrounded by lillies and mounted on a dense polished wood frame. The frame alone looks heavy but the statue, made, I believe from porcelain, and human hair, like those at the Santa Theresa nunnery in Bolivia, must be heavier still. The lillies are in glass vases. The impact, should anyone drop this, would be enormous even purely from the point of view of its weight and value. When you add the sanctity of it, any mishap would be catastrophic. I watch, awed as the men wrap cloth, similar to that used to carry babies or, in Cusco, lambs, around pillows and tie it to their shoulders to prevent it from rubbing, and then shoulder, with visible effort, the frame on which the Saint is mounted. The band starts up in earnest, another set of dancers in yellow costumes, carrying gourds, start dancing in front of the statue and the procession begins. It is hugely moving. I gaze at the effigy, sunlight glinting off the gold plating of her halo, and at the second statue, made of wood, which follows it. The music swirls, jubilant and the movement of the men carrying the statue is a dance in itself. The statue moves through the square, to process down the road that encircles the church, and which hasn't been closed so passing traffic is simply halted, none of the festivities being rushed or toned down by the presence of a long queue of traffic behind the dancers and another queue next to them, moving upwards. In the wake of the statue are several marching bands, and several different, equally exuberant troops of dancers. There are children in bright dress, twirling handkerchiefs, dancing from side to side across the road, as well as on the spot, not rushing, nor moving away from the traffic. The traffic cones second. This is an important procession. For once the impatient horn blowing ceases. There are troops of men, with ribboned hats and bells on their shoes, who dance and leap in the air waving their hats. There are dancers representing different occupations, someone carries a tool box, someone else a mobile phone. Another person wears surgeons scrubs. Inexplicably, there is also a gorilla.
We stand on the square looking down at the road, and watch until the last bright, twirling dancer, vanishes around the corner. It is a very hot day but I am glad of my sunglasses, not only because of the light, but because my eyes, beneath them, are permanently wet. I simply cannot get over how lucky we are to be here.
"We are in Peru!" I say to M, through a treacherously wobbling lower lip, "watching this! Would you ever have imagined we might get to do this? Would you have thought it?"
The festivities themselves are moving, but it is all of this and more than means I cannot keep a dry eye, neither today, nor the next day. And I am not ashamed. If anything on this trip I have become increasingly incapable of not bursting into tears whenever I see something beautiful, and I am going to gain a reputation for it quickly back home. But I have cried numerous times on this trip, and only twice were the tears for something sad. If I arrive home with overused tear ducts, it is simply because I have realised too often how wonderful life is.
Everywhere.
The second festival is, rather fittingly, San Christobel, Saint Christopher to you and I, the patron saint of travel.
We climb a similarly punishing hill, and arrive at a small square outside the church of San Christabel. The image will not be moved today though. It remains in the church, where people sit in contemplation, as beautifully adorned with lillies as Santa Ana the previous day, and looking just as intricate and heavy. The procession will not take place until 4 August. This is a multi day festival, which seems to be the norm here. I take a seat in the church and say a prayer of thanks. Certainly my little Saint Christopher's icon given to me by my sister, has kept us safe and I am grateful for the protection and for the fantastic time we have had, whether you believe those thanks are attributable to God, to the saint, or to the icon itself. I take my Saint Christopher out of my money belt, where it always travels with me. It is still every bit as battered looking.
"If you have been taking the hits for us," I say to it silently, "it's much appreciated."
We leave the church and survey the rather more beer soaked festivities outside. There are the same games, families crowded laughingly and shouting good naturedly at each other as they play table football, children flinging themselves against the nets encasing a trampoline. There are at least three small tents selling beer and playing music. The music is salsa, regatton and brass band respectively and there is a small stage on which a fourth band is setting up. Everyone is holding a bottle of beer. Most people are not holding their first bottle of beer. Suddenly the band strikes up with purpose, and marches, bombastically, inside the church. Turning to face San Christabel, they proceed to play him Happy Birthday. I am crying again, for many reasons, the exuberance, our luck, that the Saint is for travel, and because it makes me think of my sister, to name but a few.
But there is also much to laugh about. While the band plays, two men wave white San Cristobal flags in time to the music. One, I suspect rather more lubricated than the other, is swinging his flag quite deliberately into people's faces, particularly if they happen to be a photographer, for example, or a member of the band.
Outside, after the band process out, people begin dancing. A man runs into the middle of the dancers, shakes up a big bottle of beer and sprays the dancers with it. Everybody is laughing and drinking. At the food tent a man is asleep on the table. A group of women laugh with abandon, clinking glasses.
It is jubilant, familial, and lots of fun.
The Independence celebrations, which have been going on for several days already, centre on the main square and so are both larger and more sombre oinn nature, though that sense of mixed reflection and partying is still apparent. The effect is slightly dampened because of course the main square of Cusco is much more replete with tourists. There has been plenty of build up. In the last few days we have seen groups of variously aged children performing amazingly polished dances here, cvariousarious street theatre and of course innumerable marching bands. Today, the square is completely silent, but on our way home, through the meandering green paths up the hill, we see no less than two separate celebrations, each with more than one marching band, and accompanying dancers. We are stopped by an earnest and very kind (though possibly a little drunk) older man who tells us, in blurry Spanish, that God exists, despite all logic, and that in our country, (with this he raises his eyes to heaven), He is there too, one God over all the world. He blesses us, in the name of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, then releases our hands, which he has been holding all this time, and leaves us with a little bit of his blessing still lingering in our minds.
We retreat home, ready for our five thirty flight out of Cusco, and our goodbye to Peru in the morning. What a fitting ending. We have loved Peru, with its scenery, its art, its people, it's deeply felt beliefs and its sense of life.
Viva la fiesta!
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