Viva Cuenca

 

This has been a very different week for Cuenca. The city is celebrating its independence day with a week of activities. The streets and sidewalks have been more crowded than usual. Many of the streets are blocked off to allow for festival activities such as block parties and arts and craft fairs.

  Many of the booths are overflowing with clothing, art, crafts, nick nacks and food. Some have very nice things (a lot a redundancy) and some have trinkets to appeal to people caught up in buying for the sake of buying. Some of the sellers have come some distance to sell their goods. We talked to a lady from Peru who was selling sweaters and other clothing items.

                                     This lady is waiting for the cultural parade to begin.

 We went to the cultural parade last Sunday and had a good time. It was a beautiful sunny day and I tanned some and Joan burned some. We went early and found a seat on a wall across the street from Parque Calderon. We had a good vantage point until the late comers came and stood in front of us with their umbrellas open to protect them from the sun. The parade brought out the same type of vendors that a parade in the states would have, with the exception of the umbrella sellers. We tried to go to the military parade later in the week but the pushing and shoving was more stress than the parade was worth.  We left before the parade even started. We were told that the pushing and shoving got even worse as more late comers arrived.

                                                       An umbrella vendor 

                                            Staying out of the hot sun

                               Dancers performing in the street before the parade begins.

                                       Launching "globos" as the parade passes by

                                       Beauty queens and old cars are always required

                                  The street is crowded before the military parade begins

                                         The street lined with vendors on both sides

 

Booths lined both sides of the blocked off street near Parque De La Madre art on the right side and cloths and other goods on the left.

Some of the art was very much like we would find at an art fair in the states but most of it  had a definite latin American style. 

Now that we have seen these things we will be happy to get back to normal.

Viva Cuenca

Dale and Joan