More Fiesta de la Jora photos

Enjoy more photos from the parade.  There are a ton of them but very little text so it should be a fairly quick process if you want to see all of them (the kids follow the performers).

[One of my readers reminded me that if you click on any of the photos, you can see them full-sized and even have a little slide show.]

More dancing.

I loved this band. They are anything but professionals but they are good and they enjoy playing more than many other things in their lives--you can see it in their eyes.

None of them have new instruments and you can see they've had plenty of use but they're enthusiastic.

There's no way to show the beauty of the dancing but definitely the beauty of the costumes.

Speaking of costumes, these were pretty magnificent.

These are the women from the same group as the men in the photo above.

I'm not sure what these guys were up to but they had lots of fake blood and torn clothing.  They seemed to be wanting to scare some people.  I wish I'd gotten a photo of the old woman who nearly clubbed one of them with her cane.  It was priceless.

There were many young men on stilts with the "bloody" guys in the previous photo.  This one was having trouble with keeping the stilts attached to his legs.  Out came the duct tape and he wound it around his calf and foot so it was firmly attached.  If he fell, he was going down hard.  There was no way he could jump out of the stilts the way I've seen them in the States.

Here come the kids.  Some are like this little fellow who are just too adorable to be able to pass up and others...

...are little performers who are quite lovely/talented.

These swans were made completely of paper. The little girls are adorable.

Here's a combo close up of the paper components of the swans along with the cutest little girl.  She wasn't dressed up so I'm guessing she was a last-minute addition to the float.  She was definitely enjoying herself.

These little girls were showing off the produce from their village.

Just altogether too cute.  The Kichwa people are absolutely beautiful and when they smile they are even more beautiful but it's not something they do as a normal facial expression.

This float was moving too quickly for me to get a good picture but if you'll look closely you'll see that this little guy is roasting a cuy over a real fire on the float (cuy is guinea pig and the national dish and people who served it at someone's house are to be considered very honored guests).

The little girl in the middle is serving chicha to one of the parade observers.

OK, I couldn't resist taking a photo of this little girl who didn't bring a tissue with her.

And finally, the adorable kids in the little cartoon train.  Most of the kids were in costumes and were, well, cuter than cute.