Amazing costumes, masks and water fights
Trip Start
Mar 09, 2007
1
145
169
Trip End
??? ??, 2008
Oruro,
Bolivia
Monday, February 4, 2008
Oruro is booked up for Carnival. Finding a bus is also a mess. But I
found a 3 day tour that has accommodation, bus and other crap included
and it was pretty cheap, about 60 bucks for the 3 days. Done.
Turns out the
group on the tour is half Bolivian and half tourists. Most of the
tourist group is made up of a group of 16 Norwegian girls. Sweet. I
think there might be a god. Those damn Scandinavian names are tough to
remember. I got to know one of the girls, Benedicte, over the few
days, she spoke with an American accent since she had spent some time
in the US, she was pretty cool.
Carnival is
celebrated over various dates in various places. We would be in Oruro
for something called the 'Entrada,' the entering. Its basically a
parade that just seems to be never ending and begins Saturday morning.
We got in late Friday, everyone went to bed and I went and wandered
around to see what was going on the street, everyone was hammered.
Saturday at 8am is
when the parade started. Bleachers line the entire parade path and we
were given a seat in the bleachers as part of our tour. We also got
ponchos. I originally thought these were for rain, in less than an
hour of sitting on the bleachers I quickly learned that the ponchos are
not for rain. They are to protect you from getting soaked from the
huge water fight that goes on. It's city wide, everyone is in on it,
and there is no real place to hide from it. And by everyone in on it,
I mean, grandmas, grandpas, moms, dads, babies, and of course kids of
all ages are all getting in on it. Its awesome seeing a Bolivian
grandma feed her husband water balloons as he launches them at people
sitting on the bleachers on the opposite side of the parade. There was
such pure joy in him. It makes for a great visa commercial:
Sack of 8 water balloons: 1 Bs (13 US cents)
Can of variably cold beer: 5 Bs (66 US cents)
Can of spray foam: 8 Bs (1.06 USD)
Getting drunk, launching water balloons in a city wide water fight and feeling like a kid again: Priceless
Like I said
everyone is in on it and anyone is fair game to hit. And I assure you
there is no mercy. You have to be careful who you piss off with your
water balloons and water guns, start something with the wrong person
and you just started a huge water 'war' that could last the whole day.
It was great to see our whole bleacher area get into it, eventually
starting several water fight wars with various other groups. There
were these two groups close to us that were going at the most insane
water fight war I have ever seen. You can't avoid it either, its just
a matter of time before you get hit with water or foam and you are
forced to enter the huge water fight and protect yourself. Chances
that you get sprayed by a car driving by? About 1 in 5 I would say.
Chances that you get sprayed with foam or shot with a water gun by a
person walking by you? About 1 in 3.
At one point there
was this kid in the parade path that had this huge water gun and he
kept nailing me and everyone around me with it. For some reason the
cops hadn't kicked the damn rascal out of the parade area (totally
lawless country, this just proves it, haha). I was sitting in the 4th
row and had no room to maneuver around his water spraying and he kept
avoiding my water balloons. I finally had enough. Grabbed two water
balloons, made my way to the parade barrier/fence, hopped the fencing
into the parade area, and bolted after the kid fully armed. Nailed the
kid, unfortunately everyone on both sides of the parade was fully armed
as well and as I ran after him, water balloons whizzed by, and foam and
water guns were sprayed at me. I came back victorious but wetter than
I had left. Good fun.
The water fight was
awesome and good fun, but it also got tiresome (a nonstop, all day
water fight can actually get a bit annoying) and also make you paranoid
(we would start flinching and taking cover from pigeons flying in our
peripheral view, thinking that they were incoming water balloons). At
night you had to walk around with foam, chicks would walk by and spray
me and I would have to protect myself by spraying back. The worst
thing that could happen is for your spray can to got empty before
theirs.
Lots of people here
would argue that the water fight is the best part of Carnival, but I
would say that the parade would have to be the best. The parade went
on all of Saturday and into Sunday morning (about 7am). It then
restarted sometime on Sunday and ran all of Sunday into sometime Monday
morning (was still going at 3am when I went to bed).
Everyone that is in
the parade is from Oruro and its a big deal. I must admit, its the one
time I have seen Bolivians happy and it is the one thing I have seen
that these people are super passionate about. They were dressed up in
elaborate costumes and danced and sang for hours (I think it takes them
about 5 hours to get through the whole thing, that's my guess anyways)
with an enthusiasm that I have never seen before in them. They all
tried to get the crowd riled up as they danced along. The guys were
dressed in all sorts of costumes while the girls were dressed in these
costumes with mini-skirts that showed all leg. The best part was that
all forms of women were out there showing off what they had, there was
no shame, the skinny and leggy and the not so skinny and leggy (a
different kind of leggy if you get my drift) were out there. The crowd
would ask for kisses from the paraders as they walked by.
For each parading
group, they had the dancers in costumes and then they had the band that
played the music for the dancers. All dancing was synchronized
(probably the most synchronized thing you will see in all of Bolivia)
amazingly enough and some dances were quite elaborate.
I couldn't even
begin to explain the costumes and what they looked like. At times I
felt like I could have been at a parade in China. The costumes were
very intricate and extremely colorful. Almost every person in the
parade (except for the band and some of girls) had a mask. Some of
these masks were huge and extremely complex. They were actually quite
awesome. I got quite a few pictures of them, but I also had to be be
careful as water balloons were entering from all directions. There was
no mercy shown for the press photographers in the parade.
The happy, drunken
energy of Bolivians during Carnival is amazing as well. I remember one
night seeing this one whole bleacher section on its feet, dancing,
singing their hearts out and going nuts as the band passed. You
wouldn't even have noticed that the band had turned the corner and were
no longer heard, the crowd was still singing and going nuts. This I
saw in several spots and I was highly impressed, I have never seen
Bolivians like this. It was seriously the one time I have seen them
happy, enthusiastic and open to talk to outsiders. I couldn't believe
how nuts the dancers were going and how into they were.
Just as a quick
side note, every single Bolivian was completely hammered all weekend.
Grandmas as well kids were drinking. There were a lot that weren't
just drunk, but completely sloshed.
To sum things up,
we spent the days watching the parade and getting involved in water
fights and we spent the nights drinking and watching the parade from
various locations. I was able to meet up with the Irish crew and a few
others that we got to know in La Paz. So we had a great time going out
and partying till the wee hours of the morning. My wallet got pick
pocketed, but I had a good laugh at them because there was no money in
it and absolutely nothing else of value. I learned my lesson the last
time my wallet got stolen from me (about a year ago now in Belize).
Admittedly I was drinking, but I didn't feel a thing, those guys are
damn good. Several other people in our group and others I met along
the way, had things stolen from them, mostly cameras and wallets. I'm
not gonna bother using a wallet until I get back home.
I'm so glad I went and I highly recommend it to others. The parade and costumes were incredible.
