Cuzco Parade

Everybody loves a parade, and especially if on is in it. I ran into this one as I moved from Party Central hostel in Cuzco to a quiet little place across the Plaza. Here I was taken with the ladies wearing hats. I like hats, believing as well that they make a statement to others about how one feels about others. A lovely hat says to me that the person wearing is has some respect for me and has gone to the trouble and expense of showing off in a pleasant way to make me and others glad to be around such a person. But there are numerous reasons for wearing a hat, many of them simply practical, one practicality being to show which group one belongs to. 

1. Hats become part of a uniform, as does the carry-all blanket. Often times one will find a baby inside a blanket so slung. What's under the hat? Well, that's not really my business.

Sometimes a hat is the work of a year. If one looks closely one will see an inordinate amount of effort went into making such a hat. I must be misspelling the word, but I try it as "Boradoro." or fancy and weird hat making. Twice now I have met crazy people who who sew beads and such onto hats and capes and dresses and banners. Both eople, a man and a women, were probably insane. Neither could speak to me beyond a confused babble, and the last, a young woman, was frantically obsessed with her beads. But one has hats for it all.

The scene played out below, with hats, is a demonisation of Post-Columbians.  All in fun, of course.

And what could be more fun than to belong to a group, to wear a fancy hat, and to show that one is not one of 'them' whoever they might be. Cuzco. Lots of fun for tourists. I didn't like it much for some days, and then, suddenly, I didn't dislike it nearly so much, which is to say, I almost came to like it.

That's a whole nother picture, though.