Cuenca’s Intercultural Festival started today. The kickoff event was at the Broken Bridge, featuring Arepas which is a typical dish of Venezuela, Colombia and Panama.

I stopped by the Pink Garden booth and had two different Venezuelan Arepas, both were delicious. They were $3 each, a third type was available but I thought two was enough.

This is from Wikipedia:

“The arepa is a flat, round, unleavened patty of soaked, ground kernels of maize, or—more frequently nowadays—maize meal or maize flour that can be grilled, baked, fried, boiled or steamed. The characteristics vary by color, flavor, size, and the food with which it may be stuffed, depending on the region. It can be topped or filled with meat, eggs, tomatoes, salad, cheese, shrimp, or fish depending on the meal.

The arepa is a typical Venezuelan dish par excellence with the hallaca. It is consumed throughout the geography of the country, it is usually eaten almost every day at breakfast or dinner, either as a main course or as a side.”

This has been advertised locally for a couple of weeks now so it was on my radar. The Broken Bridge portion started at 11 AM and ends at 4 PM today. Those large flags you see are Venezuelan flags.

Cuenca’s Intercultural Festival runs from September 10th through September 17th. There are quite a few events scheduled.

There’s an eating establishment route linking the best of the participating countries of the international week here.

Jazz music is also part of the festival.

There are a number of additional events associated with Cuenca’s Intercultural Festival you can check out here.

Last year there was an event at the Broken Bridge like this featuring food from several different countries so I’m pretty sure this is an annual event.