Inti Raymi 2005

The festival of Inti Raymi was celebrated for the 61st time in Cusco last Friday. This was the only occasion on which locals outnumber tourists. A little background about this festival: "Inti" means "sun" in Quechua and "Raymi" means "festival." The Incas honoured the solar deity with that festival at the winter solstice because the sun was the principal object of Inca worship. However, the Spanish suppressed the Inca religion and the last royal Inti Raymi was celebrated in 1535. In 1944, a group of Cusco intellectuals revived the old ceremony and it has been celebrated every year since then on June 24, now a Cusco public holiday.

Being the best festival of the year, Cusco went wild before, during and after Inti Raymi. By wild, I mean really wild. I've never seen a party like this in my life. We arrived in Cusco on the eve of Inti Raymi to do some work, and celebrations had already commenced. There were parades all around the city. The city was practically bustling from the whole afternoon till early morning. The atmosphere was fantastic and something was always going on somewhere around the city. Almost all the locals (90%) dressed up traditionally for the occasion and it was very colourful indeed.

However, not everything was pleasant throughout the entire city. That day had to be the only day on which rain visited Cusco for a little while. People urinated everywhere, even on the main Plaza de Armas and some even urinated in the fountain. Litter was omnipresent as well. But I actually felt safe walking alone from the disco back to our hostel at 130 am, while my friends were still dancing. Cusco has a wonderful night life by the way. Moreover, the efficiency of the local authorities really left a deep impression on me. Everywhere was clean and free of litter and urine smell a few hours later at 730am.

Having heard how crowded Sacsayhuaman would be, we left central Cusco and walked to Sacsayhuaman, reaching at about 845am, when the actual program was scheduled to begin at 2 pm in the afternoon. So we basically waited and sat at Sacsayhuaman for the whole 5 hours or so, and we were indeed glad that the wait was worthwhile. We got the best seats on the ancient stones, while many locals and tourists who arrived much later struggled to catch a glimpse of the ceremony. Everything was in Quechua though, so we understood nothing.

And so we missed lunch naturally and we must have looked famished because the Peruvians sitting next to us actually offered us cuys and papas free of charge. But I dare not eat them in fear of diarrhoea, which I got it eventually somehow from somewhere. Diarrhoea has taken its toll on me. But I'm relieved that I'm feeling better now. This is my third diarrhoea episode in Peru.

Towards the end of Inti Raymi, a little incident happened. i got separated from my other volunteer friends and every resident in Cusco must have been at Sacsayhuaman that it was impossible to locate my friends. Thank goodness I know Cusco rather well, so I walked from Sacsayhuaman to the bus terminal for Urubamba and caught a bus back home to my home in Peru...