January
La Marinera Trujillana
This festival, which takes place in the northern city of Trujillo, has become one of the country’s biggest and now attracts revellers from all over Peru. Known for its traditional Marinera dance contest, the fiesta also includes parades and horse riding competitions. Worth checking out to get a glimpse of traditional culture in Peru’s north-west.
February
Carnaval
The continent’s most famous February carnivals may take place in Colombia and Brazil, but Peru makes a pretty good effort too. Starting at the beginning of lent, this festival takes place nationwide and is big on fun. Think costumes, water balloons, spray foam and enormous street parties.
March
Semana Santa in Ayacucho
Semana Santa (Holy Week) takes place all over the Spanish-speaking world. In Peru, its most impressive incarnation comes in the form of Ayacuco’s week-long extravaganza of processions where European Catholic elements have been heavily infused with traditional Andean culture to create a vibrant affair. The time between Good Friday and Easter Sunday (the interim between Christ’s death and resurrection) are treated as a period without sin, and therefore seen as an excuse for wild celebration.
April
The Paso horse festival
This takes place in Pachacamac, around 30 km from Lima and celebrates the grace and beauty of the Peruvian Paso horse, which is famed for its elegance of movement.
May
Qoyllor R’iti
At Quispicanchis, near Cusco, you can witness one of the world’s most ancient annual pilgrimages reaching its awe-inspiring culmination. Though now officially sanctioned by the Catholic Church, the tradition is known to date back thousands of years as an indigenous religious festival. Quechua and Aymara devotees make the arduous journey, accompanied by dancers, up the mountain of Ausangate, until they reach the snow line. Some go further to the mountain’s peak, bringing back huge slabs of ice on their backs to be used as holy water for irrigation.
June
Inti Raymi
Peru’s most important indigenous festival, Inti Raymi brings thousands to Cusco and honors the Inca sun god at the time of the winter solstice. Expect parades, dances and even llama sacrifice which takes place at the Sacsayhuaman ruins just outside the city.
July
Fiestas Patrias
Taking place all over the country (though biggest and brashest in Lima), the Fiestas Patrias celebrate Peru’s independence from Spain with official parades (think pomp and ceremony), bullfights and even cockfighting.
August
Santa Rosa de Lima
This deeply conservative festival in the capital consists mostly of solemn parades, many involving the police and armed forces of whom Santa Rosa is the patron saint.
September
Trujillo Spring Festival
Every year Trujillo celebrates the Festival de la Primavera with huge parades involving dances, floats and a beauty queen. It’s been going since 1950 - not long compared to some of Peru’s more ancient festivals - but attracts large numbers of visitors to the city, including many foreigners.
October
El Señor de los Milagros (The Lord of Miracles)
This spectacular festival in Lima has the largest procession anywhere in South America. Wearing solemn purple garb, the thousands involved come to venerate a devotional painting by an Angolan slave. The painting is said to have protected the city from the 1746 earthquake (it was one of the few things to have survived) and has since been regarded as sacred.
November
Todos Santos (Day of the Dead)
Most people will be familiar with this celebration, if only through its more famous Mexican version, celebrated on the same day. In Peru traditions of honouring the dead are ancient: pre-Colombian societies here brought offerings to their mummified relatives, and even attempted to communicate with them. Today families, especially in the high Andean regions, visit local cemeteries and hold a vigil for their deceased loved ones until dawn.
December
Santuranticuy Fair
Cusco plays host to this fair, whose name literally means ‘saints for sale’. All kinds of saintly figures, retablos, carvings and pottery are on sale as well as hot rum punch. The Plaza de Armas is turned into something resembling a traditional Andean market, with locals laying out their wares on rugs.