Last Saturday it was the fiesta of the Virgin del Carmen in a couple of places near here. Lisa and I (a fellow student) caught the bus over to Pisac and spent the afternoon having lunch and watching the procession of dancers and bands. Inadvertently we sat in a great place to see as all the dancers came round the square in front of us.

It was an amazing sight, over twenty groups of different dancers with specific costumes and different dances. All apparently from the same small town and surrounding area. I can't think of anything similar in the UK. It was a riot of colour and sound and only one of three days! We also experienced the Peruvian attitude to health and safety (there isn't really one). At various points arrangements of fire crackers were let off, mainly to make a noise I think. We were far to close to one early on, along with a load of locals. Unfortunately there wasn't really anywhere to run away too as the crowd was too big but we copied others and turned our backs to the explosion, shut our eyes and put our fingers in our ears! We learnt our lesson and stayed well away from the others that we saw!