Lazy Morning in Plaza San Blas
It’s the Catholic feast of Corpus Christi, and I’ve decided to take the day off from hiking and archaeological nerderie.
In the hostel, Sam The Disgruntled Brit is camped out in front of the huge TV already, watching the Lord of the Rings trilogy for probably the 20th time in his short life. Most of the hostel kids are appalled that I pick a different Sacred Valley village each day, hop on a chicken bus (sadly no chickens yet, just lots of crying babies and potatoes), and go tramping around the countryside alone.
The hostel kids come in two flavors. The ones who travel to escape reality by drinking and watching videos indoors all day, and the ones who travel to escape reality by treating this travel business like their job: a different guided tour every day, on the bus by 9, back at home base by 6, a dozen sights “done” and checked off the list. Both types of traveller are working out th concept of responsibility, but from different ends. Nobody seems capable of having any sort of experience without brandishing a camera like a charm against feeling anything.
But I digress. After breakfast (flat Andean rolls with butter and jam, tea, and fruit juice that reminds me of the Orange Drank they used to serve at day camp), I have to the get fuck out of this grand experiment on responsibility, even if it is my day off.
I have a few errands to take care of before I can really call it a vacation, though. It turns out that the bus to Lima takes 22 hours, and there are multiple departures daily. I can leave whenever, and I have my choice of a fully reclining or only partially reclining seat. Laundry is dropped off, including that ultra quick drying tech towel that hasn’t been the same since jungly Machu Picchu Pueblo. The English language book exchange on Calle Heladeros is shut — I guess old Señor Vendalibros is having his own lazy morning, somewhere far from his musty little bookshop.
Errands seen to, or at least attempted, I head for my favorite part of the city, Plaza San Blas. I spent my first week in Cusco nearby, before the lure of a cheaper hostel with free breakfast and reliable hot water brought me to my current den of gap year-dom on Plaza San Francisco. But I can visit Plaza San Blas anytime I want, and today I’m doing just that. My first stop today being a little bakery where I can nurse a cafe con leche and write postcards.
There’s a festival atmosphere in my little church square this morning. A full brass band is pumping out the cumbia hits, while neighborhood girls in their high-heeled best cluster around, smokng, dancing, taking photos for facebook. The craft vendors are taking the morning off as well and have been replaced by a wide campesina in frothing skirts selling caldo de gallina and chicha morada.
The music and the holiday from school have riled up the little boys of San Blas. They’re play fighting with sticks, climbing the fountain, and using an empty soda bottle as a soccer ball. The No Moleste El Jardin signs might as well be in Vietnamese.
The cumbia rhythms are drowned out now by a traditional march. My fifteenth religious procession* of the last two weeks arrives from the main square, led by mestizas in pink satin dresses and white top hats, brandishing decorated staffs. They’ve brought their own accompaniment, now overruled again by the Home Team’s cumbia. Is this a battle of the elaborately kitted out brass bands I see? The Home Team’s trombone section is hard at work. Can the Visitors match up? I don’t know, but there’s plenty of beer to go around.
Adding to the din, cell phone conversations are shouted, and sellers of sweets and cold drinks refuse to let their sales pitches go unheard. I’m pretty sure the words to this song are, “Gaseosas!” Coca Cola! Gaseosas Frias! Heladinas! Heladinas con flancitas! Coca Cola!” And if those aren’t the words, usually, that’s how the song goes today.
The Home Team’s trumpet line sways to the beat. The Visitors slump on the church steps, hopeless to match the men in the red coats. A toddler wails. I agree, this is a lot of action for what was supposed to be a lazy morning. Even now, a man in a festive red and gold sash beckons to the visiting musicians, motioning them into place behind the pink mestizas. He turns to the red-jacketed Home Team, inviting them to join the parade.
Moments later, they’re all on their way back to the main square and the cathedral, lazy morning turning into afternoon.
* By the way, I found out the reason for my first religious procession last week. While I was up at Machu Pichhu, there was a huge syncretic Catholic/Quechua festival on the top of this one highly important mountain, where every church in the area has to send an offering by way of procession to the top of said mountain, and many quasi-Christian ceremonies ensue. That particuar procession was the offering from San Blas.
