Peru Events and Festivals

2/01/2009 - 2/15/2009Virgin of Candelaria

On the roof of the Andes, on the shore of Lake Titicaca, the usually dull town of Puno hosts one of the biggest folk festivals of the Americas, in which musicians come from far and wide to celebrate the "Mamacha Candelaria". The festival combines pre-hispanic beliefs and fertility rituals with Christian celebrations, which were introduced later and never entirely replaced the former. Churches are decorated, masses and banquets are held and fireworks announce, emphatically, that this is fiesta time. The festival's main event is on 2 February when The Virgin is carried through the streets in a great procession. Then the music begins, with hundreds of musicians and dancers performing in various parts of the city, most of them in colourful traditional dress or outlandish outfits and masks. Devil dancing, pan pipes and Pachamama (mother earth) feature prominently in two weeks of wild festivities