Carnaval de Oruro

Today I got the once in a lifetime opportunity to go to one of the world’s largest carnival festivals in Oruro, Bolivia.  Ask anyone in Bolivia and they will tell you it’s bigger and better than Brazil’s Carnival… I’ll take their word for it!  But anyway, Kevin and Noelle Broyles told me they had been invited by the US Embassy and had an extra ticket if I wanted to join them… um, YEAH!!

OK – so this place is 4 hours away from La Paz where I’m currently living.  And when I say it’s a 4 hour drive… it’s NOTHING like driving from NYC to Boston – there are no highways… you are lucky if the road is finished, of which, in many places it wasn’t – just straight up gravel with semis and buses passing one another on a two lane road.  Completely safe.

The Carnaval de Oruro goes all day Saturday, March 1st.  Beginning at 7am and wrapping up around 4am the next morning.  It’s insane.  We left La Paz bright and early and got there at 10am.  The scenery on the drive there was really beautiful.  Once we arrived in Oruro, the city itself was nothing to write home about, but that didn’t matter, we were there for the parade that the city of Oruro has held as a tradition for the last 200+ years.  The costumes, dances and the music all tell intricate stories weaving together the country’s history and religion.

Throughout the festival, more than 48 groups of folk dancers specializing in 18 different folk dances perform.  In all, there are over 28,000 dancers, about 10,000 musicians in 150 bands, and 400,000 visitors stretching over four miles.  Like I said, it’s INSANE.

Once we arrived, we were able to to park the car literally two blocks away from the parade route, which was almost comical.  But, it’s because most people use public transportation or they walk.  My friend Gwen and I set off to find the bleacher section that we had tickets for, only we didn’t actually have the tickets in hand.  So we were just kind of winging it.  As we walked through the maze of people we quickly were attacked with water guns and foam spray, which is a huge tradition here during Carnaval.  Because we clearly stood out as foreigners, we were even more of a ‘target’.  I very promptly purchased a poncho from one of the street vendors because I wanted to protect my camera.  At one point we had climbed over the brigades into the parade route trying to find our seats and everyone in the bleachers was yelling at us and spraying us with foam.  Did I mention that it was INSANE?

We finally were escorted up to the VIP bleacher section and given two seats.  Only, we didn’t recognize ANYONE and realized we were in the Bolivian Military Section.  Ha!  So we just went with it and stayed.  They gave us food and sodas all day long and it was wonderful!  I kept waiting for them to realize we didn’t actually belong there and then kick us out.  But they didn’t, and we made friends with all of the people around us.  We were even interviewed for one of the local radio stations in Bolivia!

P.S. I just moved to La Paz, Bolivia for two months… I’ll write more about that later.

Below:  The drive to Oruro was beautiful as we passed many rolling quinoa fields.

Driving into the city of Oruro, Bolivia

Below:  Left – The street we parked on (where is everyone?).  Right – The bowler hat is a traditional part of womenswear here in Bolivia.

Below:  A group of girls are bombarded with foam spray.  This happened to us only a few minutes earlier!

Below:  I loved this little boy in the bear suit!

Below:  So many people!!

Below:  The masks and the costumes are so incredible!  People spend thousands of dollars on their costumes each year and they don’t reuse them.

Below:  Families come from all over Bolivia and the surrounding countries to take in this amazing spectacle.  And they watch the parade ALL – DAY – LONG!

Below:  I felt so bad for the people in bear costumes because it was SOOO hot and they must’ve been dying under there!!

Below:  Whenever there was a break in the parade the kids ran out and continued their foam fights!