PERÙ: Senor Torachayllo's birthday

From what I understood, senor Torachayllo is priest of Urubamba, and that every town around, Pisaq, Ollantaytambo, Lamay, Calca, have their own priest.

But no.

Torachayllo is like Jesus here- a sacred man who died a long time ago.

Every year, at around the same time, this time it was 12th of June, people dress up in the most incredible and boiling clothes you can imagine. Brought here from Puno, down in the south at Lake Titicaca, the costumes are amazing.

And as the Peruvians like to party, they start three days before and end a week after the special day.

Urubamba overlooked by the mountains of the Sacred Valley. People are getting ready to march for about 10 in the morning until 5 or 6 in the afternoon, in the blazing hot sun, around the city, into the main Plaza de Armas and again, two, three of four times.

I was looking forward to see what these ladies were going to do during the parade. Sadly, I never saw them.

The Peruvian girls are TINY. They also look very young for their age. Women who have three children look like 18 or 20; but are actually in their 30s or 40s.

These girls here look big because there stood on about 20 or 30 cm of high heels.

A corner of a blue house. Decorating flags are visible.

In order to see what is happening, whole families brought food and drinks, a little picnic, on top of their roofs.

I went with one of the workers from Willka Tika who I became very close to, Empe. She lives in Urubamba with practically all her family. Her parents live next door, her sisters and brothers down the street, her uncle and aunts on the other side of town. Some of her family, such as her married daughter live in other places, such as Pisaq, but they all live in the Sacred Valley.
Her mother, seen in the picture, has placed herself at street corner, like many other women, to sell food- potatoes, potatoes, chicken and potatoes.
(She cannot open her right eye, that's why it is closed in the picture.)

A lady eating at Empe's mom's place. Behind her, young adults are getting ready.

The very beginning of the- not even starting yet. I was surprised to see dancers at all ages, some four and three years old. The older ones, can be 20 or 7, help them all happily along.

How many hours before the parade these girls started getting ready I don't know.

Crazy masks...

And the parade has started.

Up to about 30 people took place in one dance- there were about 30, 40, maybe even more different types of dancing, costumes, all from all over Peru.

At the beginning of each dance and plank was held by 10 men, each explaining what kind of dance is going to be next. Each plank was differently decorated- flowers, corn, coffee beans.

A guy looking underneath the plank he was holding.

More dancers in different costumes.

A plank

Young dancers

There was always a leader of the dance. Sometimes they had different costumes than the rest of the dancers and sometimes they looked exactly the same. They would whistle for the dancers to know when to change the movements.

This leader here was different than the rest.