La Diablada is the Carnavale festival in Oruro, about 3 hours south of La Paz. When people ask, Vas a Carnavale? By Carnavale they mean are you going to Oruro to lose two days of sleep, get soaked with water, and experience 48 hours of constant, costumed dancing in the streets?
There were about 70 or so people in our group split between two coach buses. Our sponsor was Tigo, a cell phone company so we were inundated with Tigo gear- a blue t shirt, a waterproof plastic cell phone pouch, a sleek blue poncho, and a slew of bandanas.
Our group was relatively diverse- ages ranged from about 19 or 20 to about 28,one of the organizers was Rusian, and the highlight was the Chileans on summer break. We got to know eachother and I´ve got an invitation to Santiago.
We arrived from La Paz near the plaza and piled about 9 people in a taxi which took us about 15 blocks to our Hospedaje on Friday.
Don't, however, assume that by "of course we've got housing, we rented a house" the organizers meant "we rented a house." It had walls and a door and a roof. We slept on sandbag mats and I brought a blanket from my apartment. One must not forget about priorities, however; dancing troupes, hamburgers, water balloons, and comraderie. Maybe some sleep.
For the first time in two weeks it wasn't raining which was a good thing since our three hour bus ride took five and Saturday and Sunday were beautiful!
Oruro is a town of about 200,000 people and it IS Carnavale. There aren't any big buildings except for one Hotel, Hotel Eden. As with many small towns of Spanish influence, there is one main plaza. Once you get within about 3 blocks in any direction of the square the dusty streets, very modest homes, street dogs, and occasionally a person or two vanish as a throng a people and beating of drums overwhelm you.
We sat in bleachers that lined the streets around the plaza and watched the parade with everyone in our group, easy to spot because of our blue ponchos. Communal chants, bizarre costumes, and tons of waterballoons marked the day. I ended up staying out late and got to see one of my Rotary friends dance as a Caporale! (note the wikipedia explanation)
I ate only burgers and fries at Superhamburguesa, a marginally good fast food join. One highlight was lunch on saturday when I ate Charquekan which is LLAMA! It was very good- you eat it with mato (not sure about pronunciation-spelling) kinda like big corn kernels.
Sunday we did it all over again and headed back to La Paz at 7:00 arriving around 11:00.
pics from last year ( MY CAMERA BROKE!)
http://orurocarnaval.com/FOTOS/thumbnails.php?album=19&page=6
a better explanation of its signifance than I could give:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnaval_de_Oruro
A FAO Greenhouse
One of the members in my training group taking a look at a plot of lettuce
Another Visit With QBL
We visited the innaguration for a series of new chicken coops QBL financed in a small village in the low-lying andes mountains, 7 hours north of La Paz
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