Fiestas

Sunday’s masquerade parade satire spares no one

January 5th, 2014

There were no sacred cows at Sunday afternoon’s Day of the Innocents parade. Politicians, government policies, television personalities, expats, and even the dead, were lampooned during the three-hour procession down Cuenca’s Av. Huayna Capac. The parade, sponsored by the Cuenca Amistad Club and the Azuay journalists’ union, attracted a crowd estimated at 25,000 by police....

Pase del Niño photo essay: Expats and tourists join thousands of Cuencanos to watch the city’s largest parade

December 25th, 2013

On a sunny Christmas Eve day, tens of thousands turned out to see Cuenca’s famous Pase del Niño parade. Entries from as far away as Loja, in the south, and Imbabura Province, near the Colombian border, joined hundreds more from the Cuenca area. Cuenca expats from Argentina, the U.S., Colombia, and Peru added an international...

Today’s ‘Passing of the Child’ parade mixes the sacred and the profane and highlights Cuenca’s Christmas season

December 24th, 2009

Combining Christian and pagan ritual, the sacred and the profane, and the bizarre and traditional, today’s Pase del Nino parade –the Passing of the Child– is one Cuenca’s most colorful annual traditions. Although the parade is held in many Latin American cities, organizers claim that Cuenca’s is the largest. As many as 35,000 will participate in...