This week starts the annual Corpus Christi festival, which always starts 60 days after Easter. Though it is celebrated throughout Latin America, it is one of the largest parties in Cuenca, behind only the Paseo del Nino parade on Christmas Eve. There are fireworks every night for at least a week, and this time it […]
India 8 – Hola Mohalla
A few days after the Holi Festival, the Sikh hold a three-day celebration of Hola Mohalla. There was very little throwing of powdered paint here. Instead, the big event was a show of horsemanship, martial arts, archery, and military skills. The Sikh are easily identified as all men must wear a turban. Many of the turbans were […]
India 7 – Kaputhli Artist Colony
We visited an artist community in Delhi called Kaputhli. This is a group of some 300 families that was forcibly moved as a group from their prior homes, into temporary housing. They were promised “new and better” homes within two years. I’m sure you can guess the punchline — that was 5 years ago, and […]
India 6 – Holi Festival at Nandgaon
This is the third of three blog posts describing our experience at Holi Festival 2018. For our third day, we moved from Barsana to Nandgaon. Though many aspects of the festival are the same here, there were some very important differences — the biggest being the behavior of the crowds and lots of water mixed […]
India 5 – Holi Festival Part 3 – Barsana
This is the final of three parts describing our time in Barsana, India, during the Holi Festival 2018. People were frenetically dancing everywhere at all times, from early morning, until sundown when we left. Small bands of drummers would wander from place to place (upper-left and upper-right), and start a rapid staccato snare drum beat. […]
India 4 – Holi Festival Part 2 – Barsana
We spent two days in Barsana for the Holi Festival. This is the second of three parts covering those days. Holi powder is sold everywhere. We were told that only red and yellow should be used though, as those represent the upper caste, while blue and green were for the lower castes. After only a […]
India 3 – Holi Festival Part 1 – Barsana
Holi is an ancient religious festival, also known as the festival of colors. It celebrates the start of spring, the end of winter, good over evil, thanks for a good harvest, and in 2018, starts the evening of March 1st, ending March 2nd, 2018 (though celebrations start a week earlier). This festival is celebrated throughout India […]
El Pase del Niño Migrante Parade Cuenca 2018
Yes, it’s another parade. There are three large parades at this time of year, before Carnaval. The first was the Passing of the Traveling Child held on Christmas Eve (el Pase del Niño Viajero). The second was the Day of the Innocent’s parade. The third is today’s Passing of the Migrant Child. Today was the ninth El […]
New Year’s Eve 2017, Cuenca, Ecuador
We celebrated our sixth New Year’s Eve in Ecuador, all but one of which has been in Cuenca (in 2015, we checked out Salinas). It seems that every year in Cuenca, the event has gotten smaller, and tamer. In 2012, there were half a dozen large staged exhibits in el centro, while this year we only saw […]
2017 Cuenca Pase del Niño Parade
This was our sixth viewing of the annual Pase del Niño parade in Cuenca (see here for the report of our first viewing in 2012). The festivities start with a Catholic mass at Iglesia Carmen de la Asunción, built in 1730 and located at the Flower Market, usually around 8:30 AM, but things were running late this time. (The […]
