Aurora in Puno, Peru

As waking up from a dream I found myself in a place 3830 meters above sea level -almost half the height of the Everest. Two blue brothers, the Titicaca Lake and the infinite sky, surround this place. All my senses are transported to an autochthonous world called Puno, Peru. My ears feel the wind going through pan flutes called Siku. The sound is like nature was whistling or giving deep sighs of simultaneous sadness and joy. My eyes are filled with the dynamic colors of a being in motion. She is a woman wearing at least twenty skirts with colors reflecting the light as they please. I realize the woman is only the start of long line of dancers only comparable to the long of the Amazons.

In that moment my father and I are in the third row of an improvised audience in the street trying to stretch our bodies so we can have a better view of what is coming. Even when my eyes cannot see there is a sound coming from inside the dancers that intensifies, as their steps get closer. It is the sound of a noisemaker. I ask my father, whose busy eyes do not turn towards me to answer, why do they have noisemakers competing against the music? He answers, “it is not a simple noisemaker, it is the sound of their memories”. After seeing their complete costume, dancers wearing black mask with green and yellow dresses, I recalled that people working in mines such as Laykakota chained up so they will not be able to escape. The noisemaker is to eco the chain´s sound. But all these thoughts disappeared and new thoughts enter when I listen and see the new group passing. All these thoughts have something in common though: “I would like to be dancing too”.

The cold I felt in Puno during the “La Virgen de La Candelaria-Festivity” is similar to the cold a hand will feel when toughing the ice lanterns of Harbin. However, my internal temperature increased as my enthusiasm and my willingness to avoid missing any dancer, steps, music or costume. Now I understand why Puno is called Folkloric capital of Peru. Finally, my ears start listening to Quechua and Aimara and my memory mirrors my childhood listening my grandparents speaking Aimara and that is when I feel more human.