Caime de Judas

At 5:30 am Easter Sunday morning, Andrew, Tyson and I began our 45 minute walk to Yanuaharra to the plaza there. We had learned that Easter Sunday morning, they burn Judas and this was a once in a lifetime experience that we wanted to take part in. The sun was already up when we began our walk and it only got warmer as the morning progressed. I had worn a warm jacket because it was 5:30 am and that made sense to me. Well. It was not needed. I was hot the whole morning.

Anyway, we walked to the Plaza and there were about 100 people there. It was 45/30 min early, so not a bad start. Hanging in one of the archs surrounding the plaza was a giant papier-mâché looking man wearing a business suit. Obviously, it was Judas…We looked in the Cathedral and then took our seats. We wanted to be up close to see all the smoke and flames. Piro’s:)

Soon there was a parade type thing with people wearing black robes and carrying candles. They were singing a song, and had a solemn marching band accompanying them. By this point there were closer to 250 people gathered. At 7 am, a man began the testament of Judas. It’s basically a comedic political commentary where they make fun of all the important people that they don’t like. It went on for about 30 min. I took the opportunity to take a quick snooze because it was boring as all get out to someone who doesn’t understand Peruvian politics…or that much Spanish…

Finally the good part arrived! In Spanish, the people around us were saying “move back”, but we didn’t catch on till we couldn’t move back without loosing the ability to see. So we were standing roughly 15 feet from Judas. By far, the closest people to the action. A man took a long stick that was lit on the end and touched it to the fuse coming out of Judas’ face. He started spouting (and smelling) like a mini exploding firework thing. I leaned over to Andrew and said “is he a giant firework? I thought we were catching him on fire.” At that moment, Judas’ head burst! Pop, pop, pop!!! He was a giant firework and we were right there to catch the action!!

As his arms and head blew up, we were in the line of fire. Part of his face flew off and landed not more than 5 feet from Tyson and we were all worried it was going to pop up and get us. When his left arm exploded, flying debris hit my on my face just below my eye! I’m lucky that my eyeball was gouged out!!!

His legs were super exciting too. They spun a million miles a second and suddenly BAM POW POP they disappeared in a cloud of smoke! And his chest was much the same way. Minus the spinning. Wow, talk about being worth getting up so early! This Judas burning was way cooler than searching for my Easter basket before church….no offense Easter Bunny.