Candelaria Festival, Peru's biggest festival

Candelaria Festival: Dressing up on an epic scale
Candelaria Festival, Peru's biggest festival, is a chaotic medley of costumes, spray foam, hosepipes and egg-white cocktails.


Foosh! Right in the face. The shock sends my corn on the cob flying out of my hand but it’s certainly cooled me down. I’m at Enrique Torres Beló Stadium in Puno, a crumbly, colourful town that sits high on the banks of Lake Titicaca in Peru, and a group of men are hosing down the crowds with water meant to cool the plastic floor. I suffered a direct hit.

We are in the middle of le Fiesta de la Virgen de la Candelaria, a two-week religious celebration in honour of the Virgin Maria of the Candelaria. The festival takes place approximately 40 days after Christmas and celebrates how a vision of the Virgin Maria warned Peruvian miners that an enemy army was approaching.

The Catholic festival began back in the 19th century and today’s 20,000-strong crowd are entertained by thousands of dancers and musicians who are normally as drunk as their audience. In fact, it is now cited as the second biggest party in South America after Rio Carnival. I see few tourists (because of the floods that closed Macchu Picchu earlier this year) so my glimpse into this traditional South American world feels extra-special.

Today there are around 70 groups performing from different neighbourhoods. Each group has at least 100 performers – some a whopping 600 – and they travel from as far afield as Arequipa, Cusco and the capital city, Lima. Teenagers dance the diablada, a traditional South American dance, next to 60- year-old grandmothers while, on the sideline, mothers fuss over little girls covered in sequins. I’m told that some spend a whole year in rehearsals and an entire month’s wages on their extravagant costumes. As I kneel on a tiny patch of grass next to the plastic floor, I get squashed by a huge monkey, a child dressed as a scorpion and a pack of sweaty, adrenalin-fuelled men wearing grotesque masks to represent Africans who were enslaved in Peru in the 16th century.

Many of these groups represent various parts of Peruvian history: those in gorilla outfits, for example, are saying thanks for the bounty of the jungle. Others I can make no sense of. They are so colourful and spangly they look like dancing Christmas trees.

I head to the concrete stands to seek refuge from the harsh sun and just as I buy a slice of cake from a vendor who is wandering around with a whopping great carving knife, Miss Peru arrives high behind me, leaving the poor group who are performing suddenly faced with a sea of backs. The crowds whoop and wolf whistle as her slender form cuts through the crowds and out of sight.

The chaos of today, however, has nothing on the street parade. After a refreshing sleep, aided by many pisco sours (made with Peruvian brandy and egg whites – sounds gross, tastes amazing), I wake to find some of the performers have not been to bed. While some stumble down La Torre Avenue, the main street, still clasping a flat Cusqueña beer, those without a refreshment don’t wait long for a top up – bystanders run into the middle of the parade to offer their drinks, causing all sorts of destruction to the routines.

The music sounds the same to my Western ears but I am told by 24-year-old performer Luisa Arenas there are 200 different kinds of folk music played today. ‘As the parade goes through the street, we dance for four hours, covering 4km,’ she tells me. ‘I live in Lima and started practising in June last year so I could get myself used to altitude. It’s very difficult otherwise’. Next year will be Arenas’s third year dancing in the parade. ‘It’s a very special year because tradition says that when you dance three consecutive years, the virgin will grant the wish you made in your first year.’ Arenas’s favourite dance is the caporales, which is generally danced by younger performers in very short skirts and the wakawaka which, in contrast, requires women to wear 12 huge skirts.

My favourite dancers, however, are the young men; their excitement is infectious. As they leap, twirl and skip, they furrow their brows and shout angrily. The crowd goes wild and beer hits my right eye. Just as I wonder if I can take any more, all hell breaks loose: the children are given foam in a can. Soon, leaving our seats for a toilet break requires SAS-like planning and before long, I’m rubbing foam out of my other eye. But, regardless of the battering my face has taken, there is something very charming about Peru’s two-week marathon of pandemonium, which takes place in different forms all over the country. ‘People prepare all year and can spend all their savings in just a few days,’ says Arenas. ‘But it’s really about faith and devotion.’ And lots and lots of drinking and dancing.