Hi all, we are finally rested up after Carnaval. It´s of course the holiday to celebrate the day before Ash Wednesday and lent – and in general Latin America knows how to party on Mardi Gras like New Orleans only wishes it could. For the holiday our sleepy li
ttle town swelled to triple its normal size – 3 visitors came up from Santa Cruz to add to the fun for us and to escape the city where Carnaval can get a little out of hand.
On Sunday afternoon, there was a parade of 8 floats that went around and around the town plaza for over an hour. Parades for Carnaval include an element I´ve never seen in a parade before - the people in the parade and the crowd are involved in a waterbaloon and spray-foam fight the entire time. Each group of 30-50 folks decorated a truck, and danced behind it to the tune of their own mariachi band. A couple groups
had horse riders running about and attempting tricks. One guy had a guitar that he would play intermittently when he wasn’t making his horse rear up on its hind legs. Other riders were trying to get their horses to do the same with the only effect of really scaring us that were sitting on the curb. There were prizes for the best float, best dancing, and best music. We got invited to share in one group’s prize of 50lbs of potatoes and 5 lbs of cheese.
On the second day, the drinking really got going, and each group that was in the parade danced around town as people sitting at their houses
offered them drinks for a little performance. It was a little crazy for us, so we headed out to Nathan´s place – the other worker in the Moro Moro that lives about 8km away. You see us here on the way out of town stopping at the basketball court with probably the best view in the world - looking out to the West over the Andes. We enjoyed a nice hike and some quiet before heading back to the ruckus. You canLater in the day a band of 30 folks mounted on horseback were running through and then out of town, only to come swarming back through. It really felt like an old Western town for a while – cars were cleared out of the parade route and the smell of hot horses and leather would drift through now and then.
ttle town swelled to triple its normal size – 3 visitors came up from Santa Cruz to add to the fun for us and to escape the city where Carnaval can get a little out of hand.On Sunday afternoon, there was a parade of 8 floats that went around and around the town plaza for over an hour. Parades for Carnaval include an element I´ve never seen in a parade before - the people in the parade and the crowd are involved in a waterbaloon and spray-foam fight the entire time. Each group of 30-50 folks decorated a truck, and danced behind it to the tune of their own mariachi band. A couple groups
had horse riders running about and attempting tricks. One guy had a guitar that he would play intermittently when he wasn’t making his horse rear up on its hind legs. Other riders were trying to get their horses to do the same with the only effect of really scaring us that were sitting on the curb. There were prizes for the best float, best dancing, and best music. We got invited to share in one group’s prize of 50lbs of potatoes and 5 lbs of cheese.On the second day, the drinking really got going, and each group that was in the parade danced around town as people sitting at their houses
offered them drinks for a little performance. It was a little crazy for us, so we headed out to Nathan´s place – the other worker in the Moro Moro that lives about 8km away. You see us here on the way out of town stopping at the basketball court with probably the best view in the world - looking out to the West over the Andes. We enjoyed a nice hike and some quiet before heading back to the ruckus. You canLater in the day a band of 30 folks mounted on horseback were running through and then out of town, only to come swarming back through. It really felt like an old Western town for a while – cars were cleared out of the parade route and the smell of hot horses and leather would drift through now and then. On the third day, things were quieting down, so we walked out of town to enjoy a ch’alla (party to
bless the purchase or achievement of something) for a cow barn that MCC helped build. The chicas from Santa Cruz were getting all the attention and could hardly rest between songs, as the suitors lined up for the next dance. The mariachi played and the milk (with a little spike) flowed freely. The tradition of a chálla involves a couple hours of drinking and dancing followed by a blindfolded expert searching for the right spot to dig a sacrificial hole by walking around with a machete until the earth “draws it in”, and then digging a hole and adding food, coca and alcohol, for the PachaMama’s blessing (mother earth). The highlight of the party was the topping of this hole with a rock. As soon as it was time, people chanted “have the Macho do it.” S
o they put a leather rope around the neck of the guy who served as the expert earlier, and walked him over to a rock. The macho got down on his hands and knees, and with the help of another guy to hold the rock on his back, proceeded to buck his way across the field, with the owner jerking the leather rope. The mariachi started up again and we danced over the spot, avoiding the cow poop, and called it a day. Our visitors went home with a nice hat won with a kiss and a shirt from one of the dancing group earned with a shy “maybe” when he wrote his phone number on the pocket.It’s quite a time to be alive in BO!
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