Caray for Carnaval!

I didn’t think holidays could get any cooler than Alasitas, and then along came Carnaval. A UNESCO Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity, it mixes tradition, religion, humor, heavy drinking and indiscriminate water fighting into one crazy fiesta.

It’s held in Oruro. Oruro is usually a miserable, cold and gray altiplano mining town, but once a year its population triples and it’s transformed into a riotous, rollicking party city. Steve and I, and thousands of others, made the five hour pilgrimage by bus to sleep on someone’s floor in subzero weather. And it was well worth it.

Oruro Carnaval is a reincarnation of the Pre-Columbian Ito festival, celebrated by the Uru people. When the Spanish outlawed Ito, the indigenous people co-opted Carnival, mixing indigenous traditions and Catholic spirituality. Today the parade is dedicated to the Virgin del Socavón, patron saint of the mineshafts. Dancing in the entrada is considered a religious duty and requires a commitment of three years and thousands of Bolivianos.

While Carnaval festivities began months ago, and continue for another week, the main event is the entrada, or parade, held on the Saturday before Lent. The entrada includes upwards of a hundred of floats festooned with silverware, over 20,000 elaborately costumed dancers and more than 10,000 musicians, spread over four kilometers and eighteen hours. All of the troupes do one of the same six or so dances, each interlacing myth and tradition, imbued plenty of satire and snark. A little about them:

Las Diabladas wear huge masks with bright bulging eyes, twisted horns and long hair tangled with serpents. Temptresses with lascivious masks and short skirts dance alongside them. They represent the Christian struggle between good and evil, as well as the Pre-Colombian god of the underworld, known as Huari or El Tio.

Los Doctorcitos wear silver masks with hooked noses, warts and long white hair, glasses and pipes, tailcoats and tophats. They satirize Spanish mine owners, bowing and shaking hands as they dance.

Los Caporales wear bright velvet and sequined suits, knee-high boots with bells up the side and carry a whip in one hand and a hat in the other. Alongside them there are young women in equally bright and bouncy skirts, thigh-high boots, evening gloves braids and feathered hats. They represent the Spanish overseers, stomping, clapping and cracking their whips as they dance.

Las Morenadas and Los Negritos, pictured above, wear grotesquely exaggerated masks with big bug eyes, huge lips, and bushy black beards. They are encumbered by huge costumes, which force them to stumble stupidly down the parade route. They are the stereotype of African slaves brought over by the Spanish.

Los Tinkus wear long rainbow colored robes, adorened with sashes and capes. The men wear raw cowhide hats, shaped like the Spanish Conquistadores’ helmets, and adorned with feathers and bells. The women wear bowlers with feathers sticking straight up, like some sort of avian fountain. They act out ritual combat that still occurs between rival altiplano communities.

Los Suri Sicuris wear gigantic hats-halos of feathers, three to five feet in diameter. They wear equally oversized breastplates, which makes them look like birds. The do less dancing, more bowing and dipping their heads, barely able to right themselves.

Las Llamaderas wear traditional altiplano costumes, including polleras, bowler hats, sashes and carry slingshots. They do a very traditional altiplano dance, accompanied by little llamas.

Las Tobas wear brightly painted faces, huge, elaborate feathered headdresses, fur cuffs and ankle adornments, bare chests and midriff baring outfits, and carry spears and slingshots. They are supposedly the indigenous peoples of the orient.

The entrada is about as well organized as the Fremont Solstice Parade. There are gigantic gaps in the parade, during which huge water fights break out. The madness, which has been mounting for weeks now, included water balloons, supersoakers, buckets, and spray foam. Unfortunately, about halfway through the parade Mira, my Canon Rebel and constant companion, was hit by a water balloon and stopped working.

I felt a little like I had been shot. I was standing on the sidelines, struggling not to sob, when one of the dancers saw my expression. She invited me to dance with her troupe to cheer me up. Having watched different incarnations of the same dance for the past six hours, I had it down and was feeling better in no time. However, I did not have the awesome outfit, as pictured below. I’m planning to buy myself one when we get back to Cochabamba.

The parade continues into the wee hours of Sunday morning, when some of the dancers breathe fire, and most of the spectators are so drunk they can no longer sit in their seats, jeering at the dancers, singing and dancing in the streets, fighting and peeing everywhere.

On Sunday afternoon the dancers do the entire parade over again, hung over or still drunk. They stagger and stumble along the parade route, half-costumed, leaning on one another, occasionally dropping out to throw up.

Update: After drying out, Mira is fine. After drying out, Ally has an incredible headache.