As people around the world celebrated the summer solstice (or the winter one in the Southern Hemisphere) last week, my memory went back ten years ago (well before I set up Caradiaz) to the beautiful country of Perú, where I spent part of my honeymoon and experienced the very colourful Inti Raymi festival.

Originally a religious Inca ceremony, Inti Raymi – meaning ‘festival of the sun’ in Quechua – was held on the day of the winter solstice in the old Inca capital of Cuzco to honour the sun as the most venerated god in Inca religion. Sadly, the Spanish ‘conquistadores’ regarded the festival as a pagan celebration totally contrary to their catholic faith and decided to put a stop to it. I still remember getting embarrassed listening to our guide talking about some of the things the Spanish did during the conquest…

But Inti Rayimi - or rather a theatrical representation of it - was brought back to life in 1944 and since then, every 24th June the city of Cuzco is invaded by hordes of visitors and tourists – including me and my husband back in 2003!

Inca soldier leading the parade at Cuzco's Plaza de Armas

Dancers in regional costume

Inca Pachacote

The festival celebrations – involving various colourful parades, lots of music and dance - spread over a couple of days but 24th June is the highlight. On that day, actors representing Inca Pachacote (ruler of the empire) and his queen parade around Cuzco’s Plaza de Armas accompanied by large numbers of dancers and musicians in traditional regional costumes. The parade goes on through the city streets and ends at the ancient fortress of Sacsayhuaman, now an archaeological site overlooking Cuzco and the suggested location of the original Temple of the Sun, where the real Inca Pachacote would have performed the rituals and sacrifices that formed part of the ceremony back in his day.

Pachacote's Queen at the Plaza de Armas

The modern version is of course totally tourist-oriented and, despite a bit of drama with some fake animal killings and a bit of fire, the show is vibrant, colourful and hugely exotic. It actually lasts a good three hours, if I remember right, but there are several breaks to allow people to use the facilities and buy food and drink.

Ceremony under way with various rituals

The esplanade-turned stage for the day is totally open air and the show can be seen from the surrounding rocks, that is, if you don’t mind challenging gravity by perching dangerously from the precarious rocks – much to our horror, a couple of people actually fell from the rocks during the performance but somehow they managed to escape with only a few bruises. However, there is actually a purpose-built enclosure with half-decent seats for those (mostly tourists like us) who don’t mind splashing US$50 for a better view.

Dance groups in regional costumes, the last one from Lake Titicaca

The people sitting around us were mostly American and Japanese but we heard several European languages too. Funnily enough, there was a Dutch granny accompanied by three or four youngsters presumably grandchildren) whom we kept bumping into - we saw them in Cuzco and Machu Picchu whilst in Perú, and then a couple of times more in Bolivia! Thankfully, we managed to loose them by the time we got to Brazil.

Inti Raymi may not be up there with Rio’s Carnival in terms of popularity, let alone glamour. But it certainly is one of the most colourful and exotic events I have ever had the chance to experience. And I don’t actually know whether it is because it was part of my honeymoon or because I genuinely enjoyed it, but I have very, very fond memories of it.

So if you like a little bit of adventure and are ever in Perú for midsummer – sorry, midwinter down there - try and make it to Cuzco for Inti Raymi. It certainly is worth seeing.