A Festival with Class.

I'd like to point out that in the land of colour and short skirts (of which I expostulate often) I am not too critical of Bolivia. I always either a) put my sarcasm and negative experiences into a humourous jack-in-the-box (like inventing a stupid joke) or b) put them in the context of Bolivia’s political history that screwed it up so much. If Bolivians were allowed to live their culture, breath their own air and reap their own labour's rewards, one - that is, the USA - would have a hell of a time getting the best of such a strong, beautiful, resourceful place. Saying that, I just came back from the Torotoro Tinku Festival, a 5hr bus trip (which I think was VERY comfortable: the gruelling 7hr trip there would have been improved by not having to stand up the whole way, in a crowded isle - the direct impact of a greedy few getting more than they deserve (see? political!)). I went specifically to see the Tinku fighting that still exists to fulfill the tradition of spilling blood for Pachamama. I got some fantastic photos of the colour and genuineness, the resistance and the strength of the local people and places, but I have to claim cultural ignorance on the fighting. And in that pretext I think it's a stupid tradition (I know, I KNOW!!!). People get their noses broken, concussion, lose their teeth and often pass out on the street to recover if at all possible. Why can't they symbolically give themselves a blood nose, or get a paper cut or do some sewing when they're really drunk on the plentiful (and FREE!) Chicha? In my ‘umble western opinion, fighting doesn’t become such an otherwise friendly town. It’s just like boxing to me and that’s stupid too. And don’t anybody tell me that boxing is good for getting kids off the streets. What would be next? War isn’t hell? (see http://sirnosir.com/punkass.html) Excuse the harsh language and content of the site, but there’s a clear message there. Oops. Soapboxy.

I went to Torotoro with my Swiss housemate Ivo, my Alemanian housemate (for 4 days) Chantelle, and Ivo’s Swiss mate Simone. I put my foot in dinosaur footprints, impressed with, and finetuned my Chicha drinking finesse, gave the locals a new recipe (ordering an egg and salad sandwich from one woman’s stall and while that’s frying away in the inch deep oil (and here I am forever cursing the egg sticking to my pans!!) quickly running around the corner for some anticucho (cow heart) and mani salsa (peanut sauce) for more filling – yes, a long explanation, but that’s because it’s genius mate! GENIUS!!), resisted the irresistable aguayos on sale (those colourful back wraps that are famous for the bebe carriers), and saw a spitting image of Claudia Carvan (except South American)!! I was going to ask if I could take her photo to show, but decided against it, because unlike Claudia, who smiles all the time, this woman’s look could kill, and certainly did that to my enthusiasm... nevermind.

One thing I noticed at Torotoro, as opposed to Cbba, was the distinct lack of beggers. None! Everyone had something to do it seemed. Even if it was to drink to excess and fall asleep in the gutter, which wasn't prevalent. What was prevalent was the extremely hard work of the women and often children (as usual) who "manned" the food stalls that fed us so well. In fact this morning, as we left the alojamento at 6am to catch the bus, our favourite fried bread woman hadn't quite made it to boiling point so we unintentionally disrupted a woman breastfeeding to order fried bread (what's it called??!) from her. Her 2 year old came out from sleeping under the tarp which was draped over ... um, not sure what, but it quite shocked me. Maybe it's just for the festival... probably not...

We also noticed the overly non-Anglo-touristy nature of the place and that most tourists were from other parts of the country. Many from Cbba, and a group, very keen to play the Get-the-gringo-to-drink-all-the-Chicha thing, who were touring from Sucre - a noble journey.

Dancing till we couldn't and then some. Oh, the times.


English lessons. More on Torotoro (with pics) later.