Fiestas

Every town in Peru has their own festival. My town celebrates the entire month of September as the coming of their Arc Angel San Miguel. It’s the time of the year that all of the people come out to be together. Like a American holiday its full of parades and fireworks but as you should know by now, Peruvians wouldn’t stop there … there’s also a huge Ag/Art fair, marching bands, castillos (firework towers), live music until 5am, soccer games, bull fights, and tons of drinking and dancing.

I had been hearing about the “fiesta” since I got to town, but now I really know what they were all talking about. The festival takes place the last few days of the month, but in reality it’s the entire last two weeks. Actually you can’t even really say that, starting the first of the month, every night there was a special mass and about once a week a procession through the streets afterwards. Technically, the fiestas started the 17th. But, even then, there was a huge pre-party the night before.

I’m going to take the next couple of entries to talk about the different aspects of the festival. Overall it was a blast, and as my counterpart suggested, maybe some of you guys will be able to come visit to experience it next year.