Coracora

Coracora or Qura Qura comes from the Quechuan qura meaning Herbaceous plant,[2] the reduplication indicates that there is a group or a complex of something, "a complex of herbaceous plants".

Coracore is located 800 km from Lima, Peru at an altitude between 3,150 and 3,350 meters above sea level, known as the Quechua ecological region.

Dry and sometimes cold, the days resemble a mild summer day, but the nights resemble a freezing cold winter. The days are usually something mild between +12 and +18 °C and at nights between -5 and 5 °C. The winter season is manifested between June and September with frequent frosts, and the temperate and very rainy summer between December and March.

Founded by the Spanish conquerors toward the 17th century, Coracora was developed in what was the road between Lima and Cuzco. There, old colonial constructions built in white ashlars such as the beautiful local church of Baroque and Renaissance style, can be found.

Nevertheless, it was in the 19th and 20th century that Coracora became one of the flourishing cities of the Peruvian south mountain, thanks to the cattle raising that could gather an important number of local managers and European immigrants.

Toward the 1940s, Coracora reached an uncommon cultural and economic peak for a small city on mountain Peruvian. This prosperity began to fluctuate during the 1980s due to the social violence of those years in the whole country.

As of modern times, it has recovered their character of center cattleman, commercial and tourist with important improvements in access roads, infrastructure and services.

From August 1 to August 8, Coracora celebrates the devotion of La Virgen de Las Nieves, or known as "Virgin of the Snow".

August 1: People make preparations for the festivities and make food for the whole family.

August 2: People walk to Pumahuiri (the mountain that the Virgin of the Snow was found). People sing and dance as they walk to Pumahuiri. These songs are usually prayers.

August 3: It is the "Entrada de Negritos" (Entrance of the Blacks). The kids, as they were mentioned before, walk into town and keep singing and dancing as people follow them just as they did on their way to Pumahuiri.

August 4: It is the "Entrada de Chamiza" (Entrance of Retama).They are brought on donkeys' and llamas' backs. At night people burn a dry plant. People dance around it with the rhythm of the band that plays all night. On that same night they have Los Castillos, or fireworks on wood, in the Main Plaza, Plaza de Armas. They also have serenades with people dancing and singing.

August 5: It is the main day of the festivities. The townspeople walk around the main plaza where the church is located.

August 6 to August 8: On this day, the city goes to the bullring. Each family pays for their own place. Every square foot is worth $200.00. People buy the bulls in honor of Our Lady of the Snows and the ofresen estimates the person (compadres). It is somewhat like a donation. If the bull does not die the person who bought it and the person receiving it enters the bullring. People dressed in red lead a team of bulls.

Each year, a person must sign up to be in charge of the town festival on August 5.

Spaniards had a specific job to bring the statue of the Virgin. Their destination was Cuzco, but along the way they had stopped in Pumahuiri. Their route was really from Lima to Cuzco, but Pumahuiri was a long and very tiring mountain, so they stopped and rested. But one man had a dream about the Virgin of the Snow, telling him how she wanted to stay in that town, not Cuzco. That town was Coracora. When the man awakened, he told his fellow mates about his dream. They believed about what he had dreamed, so they climbed down the mountain and took the Virgin to Coracora. Since the men that carried the Virgin Mary down the mountain with hope and honor, the small "negritos" are supposed to represent the enslaved black men that carried the Virgen Mary.

• Abraham Falcon, luthier

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• Coracoraperu.com