Fiesta!

This is me dancin' around with some stranger guy. In Puyllucana, where I live, they have this parade for their patron saint. We were trying to find the parade, just to take a picture, and they pulled us in to dance! The man I'm dancing with has maraca shells on his ankle cuffs, and the men also have these whip-like things with sticks at the end made with rope, and, well, sticks. They make music like maracas, but the whip things don't make sounds. One of their instruments is like a drum, in fact it is a drum that they beat with their hands. To hold the drum, they do have a string around their necks, but they also have a flute/recorder without any holes, because they're beating the drums with their hands. So, they wouldn't be able to play the flute. They play the flute thing just by blowing. They also have these trumpets that are approximately 6 feet long. They have this horn on the end, like a normal trumpet. They play it sideways, like a flute. It's also like a bugle, because it doesn't have any valves. But they can make more notes than a bugle. If you look closely at the pictures, you might be able to see the instruments. They make a lot of noise.

And then after the day and all the fun we've had, at midnight, spooky spooky midnight...

BOOM! Oh, pretty. They use these towers for fireworks. Peruvian fireworks are much cooler than American fireworks. They set them off at midnight, so I didn't see them. But my mom, dad, and brother saw them, and my brother made a video with his ipad mini. You might want to see it.  They say there a lot of towers like this around our little plaza and it went on for more than an hour.