Last week was very eventful. I finished up at my project and attended a farewell play/party put on by the kids, and experienced Inti Raymi. Inti Raymi celebrates the sun, and is supposed to be the biggest festival of the whole year. I guess you could say it was a little overwhelming. 10,000 additional people packed into Cusco and lined the streets to see "the Incan" float by in an enormous parade. I say "float" because he literally had sixteen slave dudes carrying him on a golden platform. After the Incan finished with being majestically transported around the plaza, he went up to the ruins at Saqsaywaman and said some stuff in Quechua (Indigenous not-at-all-like-Spanish language), and then the other Incans pretended to sacrifice a llama. I didn't actually see the happenings at Saqsaywaman, because there were too many people to get a seat close enough to the action. I could have bought a ticket for $90 to get a reserved seat, but I am pretty glad I didn't. There are parades almost every day here, and tons of guys dressed up like Incas wandering around, so I guess I was a little jaded when the final event happened. My favorite part of the week was this fireworks show in the main square. I have no idea what they were for, but they played the Star Wars theme and blasted hundreds of fireworks from the top of this huge hill, where a replica of Christ the Redeemer redeems.
I arrived in the city of Arequipa today, which has been a nice change from the grit in Cusco. Many of the buildings are constructed of this beautiful white stone, and the general upkeep of public places seems to be better. I am still kind of planning what to do with myself during this week, but I am hoping it involves seeing condors in a giant canyon and a museum with a frozen Incan mummy (a numby!!!). Mostly, I am just excited to come up with puns using the word "mummy".
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