{"id":3376,"date":"2021-01-21T15:49:55","date_gmt":"2021-01-21T15:49:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/toonsarah-travels.blog\/staging\/?p=3376"},"modified":"2021-01-21T15:53:33","modified_gmt":"2021-01-21T15:53:33","slug":"viva-cuenca-one-weekend-three-festivals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/toonsarah-travels.blog\/staging\/viva-cuenca-one-weekend-three-festivals\/","title":{"rendered":"Viva Cuenca: one weekend, three festivals"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Why celebrate one festival when you can celebrate three? We hadn\u2019t planned our visit to Cuenca to coincide with this particular weekend, when the city parties, but we were lucky to be here at this special time and to be able to join locals and other visitors in some of the fun.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On 1st<\/sup> November each year Cuenca, like the rest of Ecuador, marks All Saints Day; and the following day is the Feast of All Souls or D\u00eda de los Muertos<\/em> (the Day of the Dead), which is almost as significant here as it is, more famously, in Mexico. A day later, on the 3rd<\/sup>, the city marks the anniversary of its independence from Spain. The three festivals form one merged celebration; and when they fall at a weekend, the city really takes on party mood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All Saints Day<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

We arrived here on Friday 1st<\/sup> to find the Parque Calder\u00f3n (the old town\u2019s main square) full of locals watching the All Saints Day procession which wound slowly round two sides of the square. We hadn\u2019t at that point learned of the independence festivities so were a little puzzled by the floats that seemed to depict periods in the city\u2019s history. But when we picked up a leaflet called \u2018Viva Cuenca\u2019 later in the day, all became clear.<\/p>\n\n\n