We’ve never been to Carnival in Bolivia before, so we decided this year it was time for us to venture to Oruro for the February festival.
We went with our friend Juana, who has family who live along the parade route. It was quite an experience. Literally thousands and thousands of dancers and musicians lined the streets as far as you could see. The parade started at 7.30 in the morning and went on until about 5.30 the following morning. Then they swapped the order and it all started again until midnight the next day. The dancers came from all over Bolivia and were from different societies and communities. For example the truck drivers had a brass band and a dancing group, the university students, the miners, the people who live on the floating islands on Lake Titicaca. All jumping and swaying and crashing about with cymbals, bells and feathers, knee high boots and short skirts!
I guess the pictures do not do it justice, but are a flavour of what it was like.
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Oh… And no-one told us about the foam!!! Sprayed at random, at everyone, all the time during carnival… Especially at us poor gringos trying to take a sneaky selfie!
Carnival continued when we went to the youth rehabilitation centre and the chicos decided to throw Dean into the mud pit and drench him with water!
Dean and Ruth's Diary 