Journey to the Andes: HAY YAY YA BOLIVIA!!!

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

HAY YAY YA BOLIVIA!!!

WOW. All I can say is that the Aymara New Year festival was one of the best experiences of my trip, if not my whole freaking life. I ate some slightly dodgy salchipapas (french fries and hot dogs cut up) an hour or so before I left on the bus, so my stomache wasn't at it's prime, so I was a little late leaving, but caught a minibus to Tiwanaku, the town an hour out of La Paz with old old pre-Inca ruins. Met some guys on the mini bus (as well as that weeeeird liberal extremist dude from Coldorado that I talked to a few weeks ago...) and ended up spending most of the night with them. When we arrived at the main plaza the party had already started without us, with Kala Marca (the group I saw in Potosi) rocking the kasbah. EVERYONE was dancing and jumping around and smiling. I didn't feel like a tourist at all, everyone was so inclusive. After they played we hung around a bonfire for a while in the freezing freaking cold...and then walked to the ruins and froze our asses off waiting for the sun to rise. Evo Morales came via helicoptor and raised the Bolivian flag outside the ruins. As the sun finally came up everyone held their palms out to catch the rays of the new year sun, and it's said that by doing this you will be blessed by the Aymara sun god. Everyone took a few swigs of 96% alchohol and embraced each other and said "hay yay ya" which means something like "long live". For the next 2 hours or so folklore groups played music and everyone danced around in circles together.

When I returned to La Paz at 11:00 or so, I slept. Lots.

It was freaking awesome.

posted by Ben @ 3:49 PM

4 Comments:

At 9:19 AM, Anonymous said…

Sounds fucking great, Ben, wish I had been there to be blessed by the Aymara Sun God.

Don't think i'll be going to Shambala, but Misha is.

E.L.F.
At 10:37 PM, Anonymous said…

Ben, that sounds like an awesomely good time. If I was there I might even have taken a swig of that alcohol....at least to keep warm!! Looking forward to your return, realizing how hard it will be for you to come home. Love Mom
At 12:31 AM, Anonymous said…

Ben, that is so awesome! I had to listen to everyone's solstice celebration stories today (the best was the seventy year old women embracing their sexuality- and by best, I mean the most interesting, not the one's I most wished I had done). Now that I've read yours, I think, definitely, you win. Blessed by the sun god... Cool.
At 10:26 AM, Andrés Paz said…

Soooooooo COOL!

You should read the Motorcycle Diaries, the stories in it have parallels to your own travels.

I leave on Tuesday for the UK, so I'm going to miss you by a 3 weeks. Live it up!

Oh, and when I get back, the Chai is on me...