Today is the more traditional Carnaval parade in La Paz. From what I gather, each group that performs is a club or organization that plans and practises all year long just for this event. I bought a seat for the parade from one of the road side vendors and had a great view of the dancers and bands. Pretty much that is what the entire parade is … dancers and their bands in really nice costumes. I took many pictures to show when I get home. I actually sat there for 6 hours and enjoyed every minute of it, including the short time that three ladies from the parade grabbed me and “forced” me to dance. It was fun. After 6 hours, it was getting cold, there was no end in sight, and I wanted to check out some of the other things going on. I made it through 36 groups where each group starts with a large banner indicating which group they are. The banner is followed by dancers, musicians, and “technical staff” which seem to be directing things or providing water to the dancers. Some of the groups were made up of well over 100 people. If you can do the math, that means about 6 per hour, so you can imagine it is more than just a group of people going by; they are literally dancing up and down and across the street, but generally moving in a downward direction.
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| I managed to snap a photo of the 3 ladies who dragged me into the Carnaval parade just before they grabbed me. |
I thought I would try to avoid the water fight today, but it was still in full force, so it was inevitable to get some over spray, an errant shot or an intentional direct hit. Without a can in my hand though, I didn’t get much. But that was boring, so I bought a couple of cans and sniped other people, lol.
After I left the parade, I decided to walk up the hill to the hotel where I discovered that my red blood cells seem to have mostly adjusted to the elevation now. I managed to walk up hills and staircases without too much difficulty. Yay! On the way to the hotel, I met a few new friends (I think they may have been drinking), danced with one for a while in front of one of the many live bands playing tonight, gave the rest of my last can of foam away to an obviously participating-in-the-water-fight young man, looked for some food but decided I wasn’t hungry, was randomly offered a cup of beer, so I drank it, observed many of the ladies with hats (Google Bolivian women to see what I mean) dancing and drinking instead of sitting on the ground selling things, and bought a large bottle of water for the night and morning.
Tomorrow, I am leaving very early for Uyuni where I will be roughing it for 3 days on a road trip to the Uyuni Salt Flats and other interesting places. This also means I won’t be writing a blog post for a few days.
If you would like to learn from my experience, if you plan to visit Bolivia, I would recommend visiting in time to see the Carnaval parade in Oruro (and stay off any structures that could collapse) and the water fight and parade in La Paz.