Semana Santa

I had arranged to catch a night bus from Cusco to Arequipa, leaving me most of another day to wander the streets of Cusco. The night before I had visited a restaurant recommended by my travel book and the food was amazing. I splurged a little on that meal and treated myself to a night out. The bill came to a whopping $25 US. Since the food was so good and the price so reasonable I decided to try lunch at a pizza restaurant highly recommended by my travel book that was supposed to be a cheap find. After a tasty pizza, but one that left me with a craving for real Italian style pizza, one of the staff sat down and we began to talk. We were exchanging life histories, when he suddenly stood up and rushed me to the door. The Procession was starting.

Now if you ever choose to travel to South Acmerica in April it would be helpful of someone would be so kind as to warn you about Semana Santa. This is a week of holiday before Easter. It includes the religions holidays of Palm Sunday, Holy Monday, Holy Tuesday, Holy Wednesday, Maundy (Holy) Thursday, Good Friday, And Holy Saturday. Then of course there is Easter Sunday, and Monday. In this time much of the cities shut down and the people celebrate thier religious holidays. Starting Monday they have daily processions with the exception of Thrusday. A procession is quite an event. The streets throughout the city are shut down and lined with policeman and local soldiers, and, for lack of other words, a float decorated in flowers and fruits, and shiny objects (depending on the wealth and size of each city) that holds Jesus on the cross. The float is carried on the shoulders of men, and preceeded down the streets by Catholic church seniority, and high ranking members of the church, the army marching band, and a bunch of other obvious important people of the community or church, and they walk the streets. The local people line up in droves to watch the procession walk by. In Cusco they bought flowers and threw them from the balconies covering the the people, and float. The whole town comes out for this event.

The only day this event does not occur is on Maudy Thursday in which it is forbidden to go to mass or have a procession. However the city remains shut down.

The first Procession in Cusco was very interesting. The Jesus on the cross was black. This Jesus was brought to Cusco from Spain in the 1600's after a large earthquake hit Cusco. The father of the catholic church at that time arranged to have the ditey made in Spain and shipped to Cusco. He informed the local people that once the diety of Christ arrived there would be no more Earthquakes. This is what helped focus the religion in Cusco from the traditional Inca Mother and Father Earth, and gods of the Sun and Moon, to the Catholic religion.

When th diety arrived it was white, but the smoke from the candles that were constantly burning around it has caused the statue of Christ to turn black.

After the first procession I began to tire of trying to fight through the streets to pass the people who were lined up waiting for the procession to pass.

The other problem with the Holy week, beyond the throngs of people in the street is the fact that about 95% of the city completely shuts down. I didn't have this problem in Cusco so much, but when I arrived in Arequipa new problems arose. The first day was Holy Tuesday. At this point I did not realize the processions were a daily occurrence, and most of the city was active and open. However on Good Friday I was hard pressed to find any sort of food or restaurant that was open. Instead suppers consists of a coffee shop, and key lime pie.. The next two days did not end fruitfully either. With the majority of a city completely shut down, very few people speaking English, and my Spanish is minimal and terrible for the little I do know.. It has proved an interesting week of Semana Santa.