RW watches some native dancing

Yesterday morning, on the level portion of the Plaza de Armas in front of the cathedral, I happened on some locals engaged in some sort of dance. They were not in costume, but I did snap a pic or two.

Today I found out why they were there. This morning was some sort of festival/presentation/contest, sponsored by "Educacion Cusco". It's for the children, awwww. Anyway, the street in front of the cathedral was blocked off, and there was a small crowd, and an increasingly large number of dance groups decked out in colorful garb. Over the course of 1 1/2 hours I probably took 100 pictures, as these groups (1) practiced on other street sections, (2) made their competitive performance (there was some kind of trophy at stake).
    

You can't buy this kind of serendipity. The dancing was often some sort of courting ritual dance, with men and women starting separately, and ending more-or-less paired off. Some were themed around some sort of profession -- one group had men as wood-cutters, another as gauchos.

    
   

     

The moves were similar to some traditional North American native steps, and some of it would have been right at home if played to English Country Dance or Morris music instead of Andean pipe/accordion/strings music. Of course, some moves weren't similar at all...

    
  

The proceedings were interrupted at one point by a parade of activists from a political party. They were helpfully followed by a police van carrying riot police (!), probably more as a precaution. In discussion with the tout for one of the restaurants on the plaza, I learned that there are regional elections here a week from Sunday (similar to the just-passed American elections).
  

This afternoon I'm heading out on a bus tour to a few nearby archaeological sites. Pray to the rain gods (to stay away).


  

In which a minor rant at curators is delivered

I know, this isn't the Ranting Wanderer, this is the Raving Wanderer. Pick nits with the linguists while I rant.

I had the opportunity to visit the Museo de Arte Precolumbino today. This is apparently a branch of a larger collection in Lima (check the web page for details). It has an exquisite collection of pre-Columbian art, that is exquisitely presented. Of all the museums I visited today (five but who's counting besides my wallet), this was the most modern, and the most expensive (20 soles, about US$7).

Each case in the collection had one or more pieces, with words printed beneath in Spanish, English, and French. Based on what I know of these languages, the translations appeared to track.

I will now quote the first portion of a "description" of one of the pieces in the collection:

Even in spite of the separation from their natural surroundings and setting, one nevertheless finds these sculptures highly suggestive and beautiful.

WTF? (Pardon my French.)

After reading dribble like this, I could only conclude that the writer was someone desparately in need of a punctured ego to deflate his overweening sense of self-importance and condescension. I mean, the one sentence I copied above is obvious even to the nearest 12-year-old who is in a museum for the first time. Who does he think he's impressing? I could put that sentence as part of a description next to a Coke bottle and would probably work as well, since it says nothing about the piece itself.

The sample above is just that -- a sample. Many of the object "descriptions" were this sort of self-important art-history bologna, often using five dollar words for relatively simple concepts. Or for projecting aesthetics onto an artist who's been dead for 1000 years.

And then there's the stuff they didn't tell. For example, where each piece was found. Pieces were grouped into rooms by culture (Peru oozes with at least half a dozen different precolumbian cultures), and only identified by culture. Thanks. Now if I want to see, say, relevant publically-reachable archaeological sites, I have no clue where to go.

Is the horse dead now?


Pictures:


This is the courtyard of a different museum, which occupied a colonial-era house.


This is from a house museum in Sevilla (in Spain, taken on last year's trip), for comparison.


Doorway in the Cusco museum.


Detail of the door.




  

Cusco, where it is rainy season

Greetings from frequently-rainy Cusco!


After spending over 18 hours in airports and airplanes, I am somewhat comfortably ensconced in a lovely "hospedaje" aka bed and breakfast, the Hospedaje Turistico Recoleta. It's a pretty nice place about a 10-minute walk from the center of town, booked through hostels.com.


After showering and napping (since I only got three hours sleep), I strolled around the central Plaza de Armas, which is ripe with touts selling all tours and all manner of tchotckes. I'm not yet gripped by a tremendous insecurity about my person, since I've read in more than one place that Cusco is not entirely safe.


Tomorrow brings a more serious start to sight-seeing, and the 12th (Sunday) will bring the start of the Inca Trail. Yippee!


Pictures:



A fountain outside town



Street scene



Alley with great Inca stonework



The perfectly-fit many-sided stone



The Plaza de Armas



 

There's a fungus amongus

While the jet is warming up to take me away to South America (in just a few short days), another neat pic from my late-summer walks through the Walden Woods.

Since we had so much rain, there's been mold, well, just about everywhere. This particular one was at the base of a tree, and stood out so vividly it desparately wanted to be photographed.

My next report will, assuming all goes well, be from lovely Cusco, Peru. Ciao!