Getting Puno With It In The Folklore Capital Of Peru

Where: Peru

December 3, 2009 at 3:09 PM | by nathanpaluck | 1 Comment

All this week, Nathan Paluck will be filling us in on "The Real Peru" outside the capital city of Lima. Any questions or suggestions, send 'em to us here.

Though I didn't plan it, I arrived to Puno, called the folklore capital of Peru, on the eve of its anniversary day. In a region that lays claims to 4,000 distinct traditional dances, you better believe there was some fierce dancing. From 2-9 p.m. the next day, Puno elementary and high schools performed choreographed street parades in lavish costumes.

Puno is a port of Lake Titicaca and is way high up: 3,800 meters, or 2.3 miles. It was so high up that I had a headache upon arriving. After I found decent lodging (Hotel Arequipa, on Arequipa with Oquendo, has private rooms, a computer room with Internet and a clean, shared bathroom for 15 soles), my altitude problem seemed cured by a couple of coca leaf teas at a bar on Calle Lima.

In the morning, there was an impressive theatrical procession of the Incas. Legend has it that the Inca empire was founded by a couple that was born from Lake Titicaca. The royal couple comes back from the lake on Puno Day, carried on a platform by young men and throwing potatoes out to a large crowd.

The procession of servants in colorful one-piece garbs arrived to a stadium, where the royalty and shamans made long pronouncements in Quechua (Peru's official language along with Spanish) and Aymara. They were checking up on their descendants and praying for a good harvest, a Quechua-speaker explained to me.

Hundreds of indigenous Peruvians and plenty of camera-laden foreigners looked on while kids selling Coke yelled �Gaseosa!� along with other vendors. The hawking seemed kind of sacrilegious � I wonder if that type of behavior was allowed at 14th century Inca ceremonies. The ceremony ended with the sacrifice of a llama, whose blood was drunk by the royal couple. (Ed. Note: Llama blood??)

Then began the never-ending street parade, each group of school kids with spectacular matching outfits and a loud brass band trailing behind. (Again, this was no ordinary Thursday � it was Puno Day. The next large celebration is the Fiesta de la Candelaria starting February 2. People start rehearsing for those traditional dances months prior.)

I ducked into the Museo de la Coca. Coca leaves are the main ingredient of cocaine, of course, but in Puno and many highland regions of the Andes, it was used in Precolombian times � and still is used � for religious ceremonies, medical purposes, and as a mild stimulant. Basically a miracle leaf (it did help my altitude acclimation, I think). Coca's now mostly chewed on by campesinos trying to stay awake in their fields and it's legal to grow, sell and buy in Peru. I bought a bag for one sol while in Cabanaconde.

Anyway, the Coca Museum is tiny, but has two interesting twenty-minute videos, one on coca and another about all those traditional Puno dances. It's only five soles to enter and worth the visit.

At night the dancing finally ended and tourists flocked to bars and restaurants on Calle Lima. It gets cold in Puno, in the low 40s so I settled for a hot coca leaf tea.

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Tags: Southern Peru Field Trip / Peru Travel / Puno Day / Inca Travel / → All Tags