La Diablada Festival, Puno, Peru

With drinking and dancing as well as a huge parade of demonic locals, this Peruvian event pays tribute to ancient spirits and the overthrow of the Spanish occupiers.

The La Diablada festival in Puno, on the banks of Lake Titicaca in Peru, may appear to the unenlightened visitor to be a strange devil-worshipping carnival. It’s not; honest – even though everyone is in rather Satanic costumes and many are dancing as though they’ve been possessed by evil demons.

If you travel to the pretty lakeside town of Puno in November it may seem as though you’ve been cast into the fiery pits of hell, but you’ve merely walked into the middle of a very strange event.

There are allegedly two reasons for it. The first is that the local residents of this Peruvian settlement are paying their respects to the ancient spirits of Lake Titicaca. Quite frankly, they don’t want to mess with whatever’s down there, and paying tribute is thought to be the best way of keeping them at bay.

The other excuse is that the La Diablada festival is thrown to celebrate the city’s liberation from the not-liked-very-much Spanish occupiers in the 19th century. Whether either is true or merely a handy excuse for a party is irrelevant though – what matters is the spectacle.

And what a show it is. Over the course of a week in November, there is drinking and dancing galore, with November 5th being the pinnacle. On this date, there is a huge parade, led by Peru’s very own version of the Devil. Residents, all dressed up in elaborate demonic and monstrous costumes follow, with red being definitively the colour of choice whether it’s in fashion elsewhere or not.