I was planning on going out to check out the Independence Day celebrations, but found myself messing around with my computer instead. Noting the time, I decided that as soon as I got hungry for lunch I would go out looking for street food. It wasn’t quite lunch time when I heard music, and realized there was a parade on the street outside. A friend had made a crack about my sitting in my window to record the Police and Firefighter parade, so I rushed down to the street to record the action from street level. I was in such a hurry that I broke a fingernail down to the quick.
The first video below shows dancers going past the front of my building.
In the second video below, I caught a passenger car that got tapped in the parade.
I really enjoyed the floats
The same float from a different angle.
They looked as if they were really in love.
In the video below, I had to wonder just how many miles these dancers had been dancing.
It wouldn’t be a parade without a beauty queen!
Some folks just walked the parade route
Others danced
Some folks looked important
Some folks seemed to be representing their church
Some folks walked with flowers.
I found an empty parking place to stand to get good angles on my photos
And indigenous woman pretending to roast cuy over a fire.
The fire was fake, but the roast cuy looked real. That is a whole roast pig in the background.
The cuy float heads down the street away from me
Women and girls dressed in traditional dress. One day in the park as women walked past where I sat reading, I noticed that the underside of these skirts was quite ornamental. In one of the videos above, the women are swishing their skirts, and you can see the bright petticoats.
Important looking man and a beauty queen.
It cracked me up, that a cute cuy costume followed the float with the roasted cuy
The little girls in the video below are too cute for words.
The reason that I get to see so many parades, is that the parades finish up at the church down the street from my condo.
When the parade was over, I went up to my place, trimmed my torn fingernail and went out to see what else was going on in the city for Independence day. I was only able to catch a few moments of the band playing in front of the church as I went by on my way down to the river. I only got to hear a few moments of the band that was playing in front of the church.
I walked around the park next to the church, noticing things I had never noticed before.
This old building has been turned into a hotel or hostel.
I had never noticed the statue in the park next to the white church down the street from my condo. Of course, I am usually down there at night, and only have eyes for the fountain.
You can just barely seen the pigeon on his head.
After enjoying the park for a little while I headed to the Cathedral to see what was going on. I decided to take a slightly different route there, planning on coming back by another route, so that I could see as much as possible.
It looks like some of the dancers from the parade have come to this plaza, overlooking the river, to rest.
Something you almost never see in Cuenca; drunks asleep on the street. I saw a few, but now that the holidays are over they are gone.
One my way to the Parque Calderon, I saw this young man pulling taffy.
The video below is the flower market, starting and ending at the door of a church, right across the street from the Cathedral.
In the center of the flower market
I wondered what this young man was selling.
Yeack …
I asked this handsome police officer if I could take his photo. He thought that I wanted him to take my photo. He was a little embarrassed when I told him, that I thought him so handsome, I wanted to take his photo, but he let me.
Tributes to a hero.
Selfie time!
Once I was finished wandering around the park, I headed down to the river, and started looking for something fun to eat.
The white tents had expanded to fill in the river walk much further down than the day before.
So much for the bicycle lane.
Score! Plantain chips. I was very near to home when I bought them, so I brought them back and opened up a cold one.
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