Goodbye, Oruro

Sunday, February 19, 2012

I woke up at 4:45 to go to Alba.  Alba is kind of like a battle of the bands at the church where the parade ends.  The group walked to the Plaza del Socavón, and I honestly remember very little of the walk since I was practically sleepwalking. 

We walked around in the church, which was beautiful.  It had the entrance to a mine (gated off though, and we didn’t go down).  I also saw a cat in the church!

Our group went out into the plaza, and weaved our way really close to the band.  We had lost one of the boys, Diego, but our program leader wasn’t too concerned.  There normally are a lot of bands all playing at once, but this year only one came.  But the energy was great!  People were singing along and lots of (drunk) men started talking to us.  One gave some mystery milk-colored alcohol to James.  He was by far the most popular with the locals.  Then the band marched from the plaza to this arena-type place and stood on some bleachers playing.  All the people followed them, and there was a lot of jostling.  Luckily no one else got separated though.

The band is in white on the right

We walked back to the hotel and I bought some snacks for the ride home.  On the way home, Sophie, James and I met a drunk man who told us how happy he was we came to see his city, and asked how we liked the carnival, and then kissed our hands.

Sophie and I went out for more snacks, and met a unicycler from Paraguay who travels around performing with his “little brother” from Uruguay (I don’t think they were really related.)  And then Diego turned up!  He had climbed the back of the stands and stood right behind the band.  (Diego is the type of person who always has fun adventures.)  We also befriended some German backpackers.

On our way out of Oruro, we stopped at Cardozo Velasquez Museum.  (It’s the artist’s house and a museum.)  There were lots of cool sculptures and paintings.  Then I played with a baby!!