Cuzco: Inti Raymi

Time to celebrate Inti Raymi!  The Sun God of the Incas!


To start off the day we went to see the first performance of dancers calling out the Sun at one of the Dominican/Incan Churches/Temples that we had visited earlier.  Dancers representing the 4 districts of the Incan empire performed before Inti Raymi came down to the field.  The whole ensemble was elegantly dressed in colorful outfits, but a little limping dog that flitted between the dancers caught everyone's eyes.

Perrito!

We then returned home to change clothes (a bit hotter than expected) and lather on the sunscreen before meeting at the Plaza de Armas to take our bus to the main celebration at Sacsayhuaman.  When we got to the Plaza the 2nd celebration of the day was just finishing up, basically a repeat of the first ceremony.  The center fountain was unveiled as a rock with Inti Raymi on top of it, a pleasant surprise as it has been covered for the 2 weeks that we've been here, presumably undergoing repairs.  

Next we went to Sacsayhauman to see the full Inti Raymi celebration.  With our $110 tickets we took our seats and waited for the performance to begin.  Similar to the previous representations dancers from the 4 Suyos came out with offerings to Inti Raymi which the High Priest accepted and dealt with accordingly (burning llama innards, lighting incense, etc.)  The ordeal ended with a good forecast for the next year and a celebration of the Incas successes in uniting people up and down the Peruvian coast.

After, a group of us walked back to the city and got the chance to take pictures with many of the dancers who had just performed.  From what I hear the main priest was a famous Peruvian actor while many of the dancers were part of the Army or University students.  Evidently there is also some amount of indigenous blood needed for one to be in the celebration.

Fabulous find of the day was a giant slice of S./ 2 cake from a little shop 2 streets up from us.  The Vanilla and Chocolate is delicious while the plain Chocolate fell a little flat.  An amazing deal and a must try when in Cusco!