carnival in Oruro

The carnival in Oruro, Bolivia, is one of the few events on UNESCO's list of "Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity" that it is feasible to visit.  Made easier for me by the two public holidays in Panama for our own carnival.  So I bought flights to and from Santa Cruz, in southern Bolivia, and booked myself a homestay with a Bolivian family in Oruro for this year's carnival.

However getting there was not to be as simple as I'd hoped, this being Bolivia.  The internal flight from Santa Cruz to Sucre was easy (and cheap, at $47!), despite the near riot from the people queuing at the next check-in desk when they heard their flight to Argentina had been delayed for two days... But getting from Sucre to Oruro required a bus.  & the heavy goods freight drivers had gone on strike, blockading all of the main intercity routes in the country with their vehicles.  Everyone assured me that the government and drivers would reach some kind of accommodation so as to enable the blockades to be lifted in time for carnival, but some of the drivers were holding out, and when I got on my bus at 20:30 the Thursday before carnival, I still wasn't 100% sure I would reach my destination.

Our route was via Potosí, and we were due to arrive in Oruro around 4am.  So when we pulled to a halt during the night and someone said we were in Potosí I was not concerned, and managed to drift in and out of sleep over the next few hours.  In fact for more hours than I expected, as it was 6am when I gave up the idea of more sleep and realised the time, and that we were clearly not in Oruro.  It turned out we were parked in the queue of vehicles waiting to get through the blockade into Potosí, where we had been for most of the night.  Our driver offered to take us back to Sucre, or to sit in the queue all day in the hope that the blockade would be lifted, but somehow the passengers persuaded him to take the bus along a small dirt track (in no way suitable for buses!) around the mountainside, to find an alternative route into Potosí.  We made it, but then coming out the other side on the Oruro road we hit another blockade.

At this point the only option was to get off the bus, take our luggage, and walk the length of the queue, through the blockade, and hope there was some onward transport the other side.  A stream of people were walking towards us having done the same thing in the other direction, and locals were making a Boliviano or two through renting out wheelbarrows to those with plenty of luggage.

Thankfully it was downhill all the way (a 2km walk with luggage at an altitude of 4,000m!), and was not raining, and I made it (without a wheelbarrow!) - finally getting into Oruro at 4pm, only 12 hours late.

& it was all worthwhile.  Add the Oruro carnival to your bucket list!!

Starting around 7am on the Saturday, the main parade lasts around twenty hours, apparently.  I stayed for twelve hours but was too tired following my night in the bus to stay until the end.  But what I saw was amazing.  Oruro carnival is not about wearing skimpy outfits to show off one's physique, but about ancient myths, fables and traditions intermingled with elements of Christianity, and this is reflected is the most incredible and colourful costumes and masks.

The most spectacular masks are those of the devils (diabladas) - in the title photo above but there is also this lighter female version here.  There are also dancers representing rheas (although multicoloured versions!), black slaves, inca chiefs, bulls, bears, condors, and other costumes and dances that recall specific battles (real or mythical) or stages in the country's history.

Specialists work all year to create the costumes and masks, which cost the dancers quite a lot of money, and to be honest the colour and spectacle of it all is quite overwhelming.  There are bands too, mostly brass bands with drummers, but a number of Andean pan pipes were also in evidence.  According to some local figures I read, some 35,000 dancers and 6,000 musicians take part, which is why it takes them twenty hours for all to cover the 3km route.  Apparently most are exhausted by the end, but on the Sunday they get to go into the Church of Virgin of the Grotto (to whom the carnival is dedicated) for a blessing and I was assured that devotion to the Virgin is as big a motivation for those taking part as the party element of the whole thing.

I suppose I would still happily seize the opportunity to see the Rio carnival, but I cannot see that it could possibly be any better than this one.