June is the month of holidays in La Paz. Saturday was El Gran Poder (“The Great Power”). I had a lot of difficulty finding good information on this holiday on the internet, but from what I have gathered, its named after Jesus or God to celebrate him/them, but in reality, the costumes in the parade are anything but Christian. The indigenous people of Bolivia were smart and when the Spanish wanted to convert them to Christianity, they agreed, but continued to celebrate their own holidays under the pretenses of saints and Christianity. El Gran Poder basically consists of a super long parade of different traditional dances and costumes that begins somewhere in northern La Paz and ends in southern La Paz, and taking up the entire day from 7am to 2am. Lots and lots of drinking is involved. The entire parade seemed to be sponsored by Paceña, a local beer company, so beer was flowing freely. Many dancers had beer cans in their hands as they danced and some already had the glazed look of drunkenness by the time we were watching them pass by on the streets at noon. And these were the dancers!
Since I slept 12 hours that night, I was feeling very refreshed and happy. I went to the nearby coffee shop next to my apartment, got a real coffee (not instant!) and a chocolate chip muffin, and tried to upload some pictures onto the blog. They heat everything up at this café, so the muffin was warm and their croissants are warm, and and and... I just really like this place. Bolivian families were having Saturday breakfast there and friends were meeting up for morning coffee to catch up on each other’s lives. Annie joined me later, we had another cup of coffee, and then went home to get ready to go watch the parade.
Around noon, we walked up to the main street where usually everything happens. On the way there, there were much less people than usual. We didn’t have to bump into people and have our conversations disrupted by the people strolling along on a busy street as if they were the only ones there. La Paz is one of the capitals of Bolivia and a huge city, but it is agonizingly slow in relation to New York or Chicago or Boston, or even Madrid for that matter. On busy streets, people pass by slowly, almost never in a hurry, and very often stop in the middle of the street to look at a shop’s window, oblivious to the people almost running into to them. I guess that happens everywhere, but here in order to walk at a normal pace on the street, it is necessary to continuously hop around people, the vendors, and dodge the traffic that almost runs over your feet as you try to pass someone by on the street. It doesn’t help that the sidewalks are narrow.
On Saturday, none of that happened. We strolled along the streets peacefully. Until we got to El Prado, the main thoroughfare: vendors had already set up their wares, yelling “cerveza, cerveza, 5 bolivianos” over and over again at the top of their lungs, the smell of grilled meat and chorizo permeated the air with row upon row of stands displaying fried chicken, grilled meat on skewers, any type of chorizo or bratwurst you could ever want. I love festivals like this. The designated parade route was segregated from the vendors outside, where rows of plastic chairs were put on both sides so people could sit down and watch the parade while enjoying their food and beer. For bolivianos, it cost about 25B’s for a spot and about a 100B’s for foreigners. We chose to stand. I’m quite tall by Bolivian standards so even with people in front of me, I had a good view of the dancers (for once!). Sometimes it’s nice to stand out in a crowd.
The dances themselves were fun and the costumes were the most ornate I have ever seen. Literally. They sparkled with jewels and glitter in every color imaginable (except beige) with shoes that would put the spice girls to shame. I am NOT exaggerating. The pictures will speak for themselves. After a while, I understood what my Spanish teacher meant by the parade becoming monotonous. Although it’s a great display of traditional Bolivian dances and costumes, a lot of the dances repeated themselves and everytime a band went by, they played the same tune as all the other bands. Although, if sitting down, I think I could have stayed a lot longer just relaxing and watching the dancers and music go by. I am sure most dances had a lot of meaning and stories behind them but I didn’t know them. We did see dancers in ratty colorful clothes with chains and their faces painted black that I think signified an African dance that slaves brought over, but that is as deep as my knowledge goes.
On the way back, we grabbed some lunch from a café (We were a little nervous to try true street-food meat) and then I packed for Coroico!
P.S. Sorry for lack of pictures on the blog. I am have not been able to upload them at all! Eventually, they will be there!
I am really behind but in short words, last weekend was Gran Poder and we went to Coroico, and then this week we only had two days of rotations because Tuesday was Aymara New Year (winter solstice here) and Thursday was San Juan. We took advantage of that and took Friday off to travel to the Salt Flats (Salar de Uyuni) in the south of Bolivia. We just got back this morning and now I'm trying to catch up on internet. Hope everything is well with everyone else!
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