Water breaking everywhere and not a pregnant woman in sight.

Bloody hell! Carnival continues here in Bolivia, the long weekend after the celebrations in Oruro, the sleepiest (read for most people: boringest) little city in the country. Oruro is famous for its few days of mayhem at the request of the diablo (of whom the participants and observers idolise to no end!). Of course the Virgin Mary, in all her incarnations is heavily present but never without the love, adoration and terror toward the little devils who inhabit the filthy, deadly mines closeby.

(foderation! My ears ring and my heart pounds just now as more of the foolishly available fire crackers explode just outside this door. Man, they give me the shits!)

Anyway, the initial "bloody hell" was to represent that madness that ensued for Fiona and I when we saw it all in broad daylight in Oruro last Saturday. 30,000 parade performers, 10,000 musicians, 100s of thousands of partygoers, and at at guess 3 or 4 billion water balloons. As you can see by the ponchoed photos it was terribly bad weather... (pause) not! Photo opportunities were at minimum as the chance of balloons crossing our paths and drenching our arses were at maximum. Our expensive seats in a fairly prime position for viewing most of the parade, was also fairly safe from watery projectiles but Fiona and I tried to emulate a wonderous experience Marty and I had last year in Urkupiña by walking against the parade between them and the crowd. I thought it wouldn't be possible due to the more highly organised ... organisers, but the idea was rendered impossible by the hopelessness that was water-balloon-and-foam-spraycan-sitting-duck-"Look!-Gringos!!"-prime-positionness. We couldn't walk even two minutes before the visionless dodging and at times painfully large bustery balloons and in-yer-face foam (often used as a distraction from your pockets...) forced us to turn and retreat to our seats. We knew that the walking wouldn't get any easier ahead and yet sadly had to admit the certaintly of reexperiencing the previous two minutes crowd... When we got back to our seats people wanted photographs of US, the dripping christmas tree duo...

It was at a moment between the pain and the embarrassment that I turned... My stance on water balloons went from "If you live by the balloon, you die by the balloon" to "The balloon is mightier than than the boring killjoy" and bags of ready-made water bombs were aquired solely for revenge, which was got.

A pleasant time was had, yet we were only there for the day. Overnight accommodation was practically non-existant and if it did exist hotel prices for Carnival can rise 5-fold, especially for us yankee lookin' types.

Never mind. On the Monday (yesterday) Fiona and I wandered down The Prado to have a quiet coffee (pause) NOT! My new stance decried the old "give 'em a filthy look, get them upset with you, get you in a bad mood with everyone" belief system and heralded in the new "right! That's it! Where's them balloons?!" kind of ... what's that word again... oh yes, FUN!

Janice would be proud of me - my projectiles were often nicely executed. I'm sure if Carnival was all about spitting contests I'd be still sitting at home watching it on telly.