There used to be a lot more fireworks in Cuenca, and when we arrived we had expected to be shooting quite a few displays while here.  Fireworks here are some of the most dangerous we have seen anywhere in the world. They are shot up right in the middle of crowded streets, with the flaming remnants falling into the trees, onto the roofs of houses and cars, and even among the audience. One such display caught a major church on fire this past August, and many of the displays were restricted after that.  Since it was a church that caught fire, and almost all these displays are put on by the church parishes of the city, it is not clear to us whether these restrictions are new laws passed by the city, or the church has put its own limits on its own displays. 

Either way though, we have been here five weeks, and didn’t photograph any displays until tonight.  We have seen three others in the distance, but never knew about them until too late.  There does not appear to be any published schedule of where these will be.  Instead, word-of-mouth within each parish lets people know.

Last night we heard rockets firing pretty close, and then saw fireworks over the trees, apparently just a few blocks away.  Rockets were then fired every few minutes all night long.  When I asked Xavier (the apartment manager) this morning, he said it was a local church celebrating its patron saint day.  Oh well, missed another one.

Tonight we started hearing rockets again about 5:00, grabbed our cameras and followed the sound.  It turned out to be the same church.  Apparently this is a multi-day celebration for them.

Most of the fireworks are just rockets that are fired off to explode 100 feet or so in the air.  They make a lot of noise, produce a small amount of smoke, and tumble back to earth.

Kids set up a rocket, light the fuse, then casually walk away while the rocket fires. These spent rockets littered the area, often falling (still burning) through the trees and landing on the car tops or among the audience.

San Rogue church was celebrating tonight, and included a band that played periodically through the evening.

One man fired off a couple dozen spinners. He held a short pole, lit the fireworks, then ducked his head to avoid being burned by the sparks. This was lit directly under some large trees, and within a few feet of several cars.

 After things had pretty much died down around the church, we went to dinner at Nektar and listened to The Jazz Society again. Tonight, they were joined by several new players that we had not seen before.  There were five dancers this time, plus a couple sax players.

There was also one pair of musicians that were baffling to hear at first.  One alternately played a clarinet and a sax, while the other alternated between a wooden flute (I’m sure there is a more proper name for it…), and a small hand drum (you can tell I am not a musician by all these technical names I bandy about!).  I could have sworn there were several other instruments being played too, with the result sounding like a whale song. Something I had never heard live before.

At one point, I thought he was “cheating” by playing a recorder with a background track.  After awhile it became clear though.  He had a recorder at his feet that would capture his music, then play it back later with him. Thus, the music complexity grew in the first minute or so, until he was playing with multiple copies of himself at once.  Something I would have thought could only be done in a multi-track studio with hours of work — but we were hearing it done live and sounding perfectly natural, if a bit disorienting.