Today, our group decided to travel to Saqsaywaman, a local archeological site to witness the culmination of Cusco’s annual Inti Raymi festival. This festival happens on or near the winter solstice, and it’s main purpose is to honor the sun and re-enact a native tradition that existed before the Spaniards came. Throughout our whole stay here we have seen all different types of people parading through the streets, and even some familiar faces on floats(Iron Man, Thanos). There were thousands of locals who we walked with, and it was a little bit hard to find a place to be able to see the festival, but we found a nice spot where we were able to get a glimpse of some of the traditional dancing. Throughout the whole festival, the announcer was speaking quetchwan, the native language before colonization. Local people were also selling things such as food, water, soda, hats, umbrellas, and anything else we could’ve wanted/needed. This festival is so important to the locals because it is a way to preserve their history and some of their traditions from before the Europeans came and brought their own religions. This was truly a wonderful experience to be apart of.
- Hope Sanders
After getting to sleep in, we woke up and traveled to Saqsaywaman for the annual Intiraymi Festival. Hundreds of thousands of people travel to saqsaywaman every year to be able to enjoy the traditional Peruvian culture presented, which are mostly dances and music. To get to the festival, you must hike uphill which took us about an hour to an hour and fifteen minutes including breaks on the way. When we finally reached the top, it was hard to find a place to watch the festival because of all the people, but eventually we found a spot and were able to see a little bit of the performances. Their music has a lot of drums and flute sounding instruments. The drums set the tempo of the music while the flute instruments mainly played the melody. After we left the festival, we hiked down the mountain and went back to the hotel. We got ready for our fancy dinner which had live Peruvian music and dancers. Overall the experience was a combination for fun, entertaining and interesting. -Keli Flanagan
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