“Made up traditions” have a long history in the grounds of tourism. An inmense number of festivities and rituals of the pasts are held for the interest shown by the market and tourists. A very interesting case is the celebration of the Inti Raymi, a ritual of celebration for the Inca emperor, for which groups of people from many locations arrived.
The genocide caused by the spaniards put an end to these celebrations, in the name of christianism. But in 1947, this festivity was brought up as a way to celebrate the “identity” of Cuzco, which can be extended to a particular idea of “peruanity”. With time, the festivity gained a commercial and touristic connotation, to the point that today a good spot to see the ceremony costs at least $70.

According to the note published by Caretas (a magazine from Lima), 100 thousand people go to this festivity and most of them are located outside of the ceremony center, Sacsayhuaman. The results, an increasing damage to the location, which looks like a dumpster after the celebration is over, and can suffer greater damages. Something similar happens in Machu Picchu where some of the citadel’s walls are in danger of falling down due to excess tourists.

Concerning this issues, the author of the note, the journalist Teresina Muñoz-Najar, wonders if it wouldn’t be necessary by now to relocate the festival to a place where it can’t cause any damage to an archeological patrimony. Since it’s an invented tradition, more than one might think that the change shouldn’t affect too much the celebration, which holds only a remote resemblence to the original one, not even celebrated at the same location. Unfortunately, it’s more likely that this celebration will continue to be held in this location until there are irreparable damages. And this seems to be the general rule in Cuzco: with an almost devastated Inca trail and Machu Picchu in problems -not to mention the chronic difficulties in Aguas Calientes- it’s getting close the moment to take decisions that will surely decide what to privilege: the historic patrimony or tourist industry.

“Made up traditions” have a long history in the grounds of tourism. An inmense number of festivities and rituals of the pasts are held for the interest shown by the market and tourists. A very interesting case is the celebration of the Inti Raymi, a ritual of celebration for the Inca emperor, for which groups of people from many locations arrived.
The genocide caused by the spaniards put an end to these celebrations, in the name of christianism. But in 1947, this festivity was brought up as a way to celebrate the “identity” of Cuzco, which can be extended to a particular idea of “peruanity”. With time, the festivity gained a commercial and touristic connotation, to the point that today a good spot to see the ceremony costs at least $70.

According to the note published by Caretas (a magazine from Lima), 100 thousand people go to this festivity and most of them are located outside of the ceremony center, Sacsayhuaman. The results, an increasing damage to the location, which looks like a dumpster after the celebration is over, and can suffer greater damages. Something similar happens in Machu Picchu where some of the citadel’s walls are in danger of falling down due to excess tourists.

Concerning this issues, the author of the note, the journalist Teresina Muñoz-Najar, wonders if it wouldn’t be necessary by now to relocate the festival to a place where it can’t cause any damage to an archeological patrimony. Since it’s an invented tradition, more than one might think that the change shouldn’t affect too much the celebration, which holds only a remote resemblence to the original one, not even celebrated at the same location. Unfortunately, it’s more likely that this celebration will continue to be held in this location until there are irreparable damages. And this seems to be the general rule in Cuzco: with an almost devastated Inca trail and Machu Picchu in problems -not to mention the chronic difficulties in Aguas Calientes- it’s getting close the moment to take decisions that will surely decide what to privilege: the historic patrimony or tourist industry.

Montevideo today looks very revolutionised, in the middle of political parties intern elections, a little on the american primary elections style: all the groups decide their candidates on the same day and any citizen can participate in a partiday election. While the city looks all covered with papers from the National, Colorado and Frente Amplio parties ballots, what grabbed my attention is how the power of convocatory grows as I got closer to the suburbs. In fact, this morning I was at the district El Cerro, where the fortress from where the whole city can be viewed. Over there, the presence of white, blue and red flags was overwhelming.

By the way, I took a few pictures today at El Cerro, although it was pretty cloudy and the pictures didn’t came out as I wanted to. As soon as I publish them I will let you know.

Now, sunday afternoon, the city looks totally desert and sunken in the mist, which gives it a gory aspect. Even the Fun Fun (a popular bar) is closed. Anyways, in a few hours I will be going back to Buenos Aires with a couple of Patricia beers and a bottle of Tannat wine. Even so, I still have time left to drink another Pilsen and take a stroll around the 18 de julio avenue before heading to Tres Cruces, the bus station of Montevideo.

Is the old institution of the bus fare collector men dissappearing? Montevideo’s buses have more busdriver-fare collector than it used to. It might be a matter of costs, but the truth is that bus fare is pretty higher than other places in Latin America.

Why is it that on weekend days the streets of Montevideo look so desert? Except for the ‘mercado del puerto’ and some zones of the 18 de julio avenue, there’s very few people in the streets. Could it be the cold weather?

The Parque Rodó is slowly decaying. Their 60s era games are almost empty. And although the cold weather and today’s rain doesn’t help, the truth is that it was sad to look at all those empty seats in the games. It took only a couple of people to jump in one of them to make them work. The good thing is I got to take a couple of pictures.

Ok. So, now it’s the turn of my ride around Ciudad Vieja (old town) -actually, my hotel is a couple of blocks away- which has become the center of Montevideo’s night life. And tomorrow I will go the Tristan Narvaja fair, a classic.

Something I have noticed: everywhere, newspapers and maganzines, you can find a note about the anniversary of the “uruguayan Gardel”. Is it so important where was he born? At the end, when the man decided to sing a tango to a city, he picked Buenos Aires, so…
Jokes aside, I think it’s an interesting topic to discuss in further entries, since I run into many publications in newspapers and books -there is one in the newspaper El Pais that I will surely reproduce here soon- that vehemently seek to reaffirm the tacuaremboense identity of Gardel. Interesting.

Montevideo is, for the essencialist description of the “others” rioplatenses -that is, for those of us who live in Buenos Aires- some sort of surprise box. I’ll try to be almost impressionist: the Ciudad Vieja (old town) is the most touristic place of Montevideo, it’s like visiting a place that has remained in the past. Travel agencies that look like public offices, bars with old tables and big wooden counters, beginning of the century buildings, many of them in bad shape, and a long collection of cars with near half a century on top of their tires. Add the public services -yes, in Uruguay, services are not usually private- and bus tickets, the same ones of times when in Buenos Aires there were no expending machines. You can tell menemism hasn’t made its way to this place.

Up to now, I gave myself the treats I usually get when I come to Montevideo: drink Patricia beer, buy spicy burgers at street vendors and eat a croissant with ham and cheese at the Iberia bar, one of my favorites -this time I took pictures of the bar, I will publish them when I come back, in Album Nomade.

And I’ll leave you for now, since I’m going to lunch at the famous Mercado del puerto and I’m going to have a “medio y medio”. You didn’t think I was going to miss out the best saturday thing of this town, did you? If fog cedes tomorrow -the day started off almost white, you couldn’t see anything on the street- I will go to el Cerro to take some panoramic views of this town, before going to the Tristan Narvaja fair where I already have a mental list of the books I want and I’m also looking forward to taking pictures of the street vendors of third world hardware: Commodore PCs, really old keyboards with missing keys, Coleco Vision consoles.

As you can see, this is a very ‘tourist’ weekend. Although, I couldn’t help to bring a Kevin Meethan book to read…