Corpus Christi

Woman making chiriuchu.

First let's talk about "chiriuchu." It's the main food at the festival that I'm about to talk about. It is chicken, tortillas, rice, other stuff, and whole guinea pigs! Guinea pigs. If you look at the above picture you can see the guinea pigs off to the left. They still have their teeth.

No festival is complete without tons of live music.

The Corpus Christi festival was two Thursdays ago. I don't know what it's a festival of, I just keep hearing that "it's very Catholic."  Anyway it consists of TONS of people, throngs of them, carrying huge statues of saints around the Plaze de Armas. The place was packed. And some of these saint statues were threatening to crush the 20-30 people who were hoisting them around. No procession would be complete with out music and flags, and Corpus Christi is in no short supply of either.

A bunch of people at the Corpus Christi Festival.

During the festivities, one saint caught my eye. This saint rode a horse, how chivalrous. This saint was also crushing an Incan. You have to ask "why?" And I did. What happened was the Incans had the Spanish surrounded, so many 100s of years ago, in the very plaza that the saint statues were being carried around in now. The Incans had a sure victory on their hands until… this saint--Saint Sebastian I think--came storming in on a horse from somewhere and started just destroying Incans: crushing, stomping, slashing. Now this was a saint! And the Spanish ended up winnning this battle and Saint Sebastian was ever remembered as an Incan crusher. Can you imagine! Let's see that pass as politically correct in the US, shall we.

The saint, crushing an Incan.