The defining event of Puno's year and one of the great religious festivals of South America. The Fiesta de la Virgen de la Candelaria takes place over the first two weeks of February and centres on the image of the Virgen housed in the Iglesia San Juan Bautista. Tens of thousands of pilgrims and dancers descend on the city; hotels are booked months in advance.
The highlight is the daytime parades of dance troupes — diabladas (masked devil dances), morenadas, caporales, sicuris — each of which combines several hundred performers in heavy embroidered costumes with full brass bands. The festival mixes deep Catholic devotion with much older Andean ritual. If you are in southern Peru in early February, time your visit to coincide with it; if you are not, the rest of the year is much quieter and easier to navigate.