This past weekend while on my way home from lunch with friends I encountered a road block and, while I was initially annoyed at the inconvenience, I quickly parked my Vespa and headed to check out the promise of something interesting. Up ahead were bright costumes, people dancing and music accompanied by whistles and singing. Lucky for me I had my camera so got some cool pictures of the jubilant and colorful atmosphere.
I discovered the "Gran Carnaval Boliviano" - a traditionally pre-Easter parade of sorts where different dancing societies performed different traditional folk dances of Bolivia. I caught the tail end of the "pasacalles" (parade) and saw groups dancing the Morenada and the Caporales dances.
The dances are inspired by legends and myths and the morenada is often called the "dance of the black slaves" because it was thought to have been started by them. I spoke with a Bolivian work colleague who told me that, even though it sounds strange, there are masked demons in the groups because miners would pray to them before going into the silver mines so that the demons wouldn't hurt them while in the dark mines.
The general feeling was lively, with music, whistles and people just having fun. The costumes were vibrant and intricately decorated and as my workmate told me each region has a different traditional costume.