Oruro - Carnaval!

Oruro - Carnaval!

We hadn't planned on going to Oruro, but when everyone & their brother tells you, you have to go, then you go!
Carnaval really got started on Saturday, and we were going to arrive in Oruro on Wed. A tourist agency in La Paz told us there would be nothing to see until Saturday, but other local people told us we could watch the set up and watch people practicing their dances. We also figured it would be easier to get a hotel room. 

Arriving in Oruro, you would never expect that they are famous for throwing the country's biggest party each year. It is a mining town on the Altiplano (the high plains) and it is hands down the dirtiest place we've been. Driving in there was flooding everywhere and trash as far as the eye could see. It looked sort of like a land fill, if you had spread the trash from the landfill all over the place, and added 4-6 inches of water on top. Luckily, once we got into the actual town, things looked better. 

We started walking toward a place we had read about that sounded good for a room. When we were getting close, a local lady stopped us on the street and asked if we had a place to stay. Since all the hotel rooms get booked up for Carnaval, a lot of the enterprising home owners rent out a room in their house. We went to check it out, and it was lovely and quiet, so we worked out a deal with her to stay through Saturday mid day. 

The extended Lopez family lived in this house - grandmother and grandfather, their 3 grown children (2 women and a man), the two young children of one of the daughters and their dog, Snoopy. These were such sweet people, and they really wanted us to enjoy our stay. So much so that they would each individually check on us and offer us tea, coffee, food, etc. It got to be pretty funny, because every 5 minutes, someone would knock on our door and make sure we were ok. Grandma made us both drink more tea and eat more than the rest of the whole family would have needed. They were wonderful. 

After settling in on Wed, we were told that Thurs was the big parade for all the local campesinos, or native  people who live in small, rural communities.  This parade alone would have made the trip to Oruro worthwhile. The costumes and dances were unbelievable! 

As for Carnaval itself on Saturday, I can't even begin to describe it. I will upload my bijillions of pictures to FB, and the best I can do is just give you snapshots of some of the scenes from the day. 

- An all day parade (7 am to 4am) consisting of people dressed as devils, angels, giant bears, cowboys, slaves, slave drivers, conquistadors, showgirls, women and men in traditional costumes, and endless big bands.

- Mostly kids (but plenty of adults too) spraying anyone they could surprise with "spoma," a sort of shaving cream in a can that sprays really far. We got completely covered on more than one occasion and took to wearing our rain coats with the hood on at all times. 

- A little boy (maybe 4?) who was reaking havoc during the parade. His parents were no where to be seen. He would dash back and forth across the parade - through the legs of people dancing on platform heels - and in between acts would do things like break beer bottles in the street, kick cans in the way of the people in the parade, bring a giant box and set it right in the middle of the road, etc. When a cop finally walked by, our whole side of the stands started yelling at him to get the little boy. But there were so many kids, he kept grabbing the wrong one, as the real hellion would sneak behind his back, run between his legs, etc. When he finally got the right kid, he held him up in the air to us as we all cheered, and just then another little boy started peeing in the road right behind the cop. This produced more jeers from the crowd at which point the cop put the original little bad boy back down with his peeing buddy and just walked away. 

- People selling absolutely everything during the parade, walking up and down in front of the stands, yelling out their wears. Beer! (Every other vendor was selling beer, including kids that looked about 12.) Spoma! (to spray everyone) Ponchos! (to protect yourself from the spoma) Balloons! Empanadas! Humitas! Ice cream! Cigarettes! Candy! Llama jerky! Cotton candy! Hard boiled eggs! Sherbet! Hard liquor! A handy device to cut pineapples in one smooth motion! French fries! Kleenex! Bubbles! And on, and on, and on...

- People trying to squeeze onto bleachers with a seating system that left a little to be desired. You have to buy seats for Carnaval, and the best seats cost quite a lot. We had pretty good seats (right across the way from Evo Morales, the president!) But even these good seats were just wooden bleachers, and they had painted numbers on them.  First of all the numbers were spaced far enough apart for elementary school children, not grown adults. Secondly, each row was numbered the same, and the rows were supposedly lettered A, B, C, etc, except these were not written anywhere, which led to many disagreements. The only one who "knew" the row letters was an older woman down front who took a liking to us, since we were the first ones to arrive. Throughout the day, people kept showing up and saying that we were in their seats. Our sweet old lady would yell at them and tell them we were NOT, and their seats were clearly those over there - those being also completely full, but we didn't argue. Since it was impossible to know which seat was which, we never knew where we were really supposed to be, and in all likelihood were most definitely taking someone's seat. But it's better to be lucky and have friends, and we just sat in the same place all day while chaos ensued around us. 

- Fireworks. These people love fireworks, especially those ones that just make a really loud bang.  Men would walk through the parade with these while smoking a cigarette, and use the end of their cigarette to occasionally light a whole clump of these things that would go off like a round of bullets, all while dancers are trying to dance in huge bulky costumes with giant masks on that make it so they really can't see where they're going. 

- The costumes! The colors! These costumes sometimes cost over $1000 each, and that is in a country where the average worker makes around $20 a week. The embroidery and detail that goes into these things is just amazing.  In order to dance or play music in the parade, you either have to pay, or it has to be passed down through your family. Absolutely amazing!

Next stop - Turija, in southern Bolivia, where they are known for their wine. They're celebrating Carnaval there too, but it will hopefully be a little more subdued!