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6 Festivals that will put Peru on your Map
If there’s one thing Peruvians know how to do, it’s party.
With an epic 3000 festivals held every year, the Peruvian calendar is packed with celebrations – an explosion of colourful parades, music, dancing in costume and eating and drinking.
Expect to see anything from locals dressed up as Spanish colonists wearing hideous blue-eyed masks with long hairy beards, to religious icons being paraded through crowded plazas as once were the mummies of Inca rulers.
Peru’s biggest festival is Inti Raymi just gone by on June 24, a celebration of the Inca Sun God and winter solstice.
But if you’re thinking about studying Spanish in Peru and want to coincide your visit with a festival, there are plenty to experience right throughout the year.
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4 Cultural Tips You Need to Know When in Cusco
Below you will find a short list of four important cultural tips that will be very useful for you when you study Spanish in Peru and you’re living in Cusco for a while. Do you have more tips, things you’ve learnt during your Spanish courses in Cusco, or your stay with a Peruvian host family? Please let us know.
Asking for Directions
When trying to find a restaurant, hotel, or a certain street in Cusco it is always best to ask 4 or 5 people. Sometimes Peruvians may give you directions even though they are not exactly sure where your destination lies. They like to help people so they would rather give you an answer than not tell you anything at all. Also, if you ask a Peruvian how much farther until your destination, it is likely they will tell you just a little bit longer when in reality it is still a long ways off. In order to get the most accurate information, it is best to ask more than one person and take the general consensus.
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Santurantikuy christmas markets in Cusco Peru
One of the most important Christmas events that you can visit if you Study Spanish in Peru these days, is the Santurantikuy Christmas market in Cusco.
This important fair has been a Cusco Christmas Eve tradition for over 500 years and if you have the opportunity to visit you certainly should. It is hard to miss anyway, as it takes place on the Plaza de Armas from early in the morning on. Santurantikuy begins around 4am on December 24th when the first artisans arrive with their colorful wares to peddle, and it lasts well into the evening of December 24th.
“Santurantikuy” translates to the ‘Selling of the Saints’ in Quechua, the original language of the Peruvians and still spoken by many people in Cusco and other regions of Peru. Religious ceramics dominate the market, and according to the local artisans, they take about 6 months to hand craft perfectly.
