Fight for the Right to Party

It’s the morning of the second day of the Oruro Carnival and celebrations have been going on all night. As I sit for breakfast the receptionist comes over to the restaurant to let me know that someone is looking for me. I assume it’s the Waygoer so I’m surprised to see a stranger. He’s about forty, slim, with pepper colored beard. He introduces himself as Alex, the Waygoer’s friend. Now, I remember the Waygoer mentioning something about a French guy he met in Ushuaia who had plans to join us in Bolivia. Soon after the Waygoer appears and the two of them head out to photograph drunken people passed out in the streets.

Around lunch, they reappear in the lobby of my hotel somewhat shaken. The Waygoer tells me I should have been out filming with them as they almost got into a fight. Apparently they’d been filming a sleeping drunk when a group of 4-5 people led by a woman started shouting at them to stop photographing. The woman even tried to pull the Waygoer’s camera and the other people commanded them to erase the pictures. Only Alex’s decent Spanish managed to get them out of a serious jam.

The incident hasn’t diminished the Waygoer’s appetite for festival shots, so we go out into the crowds again. In the middle of shooting a marching band, the Waygoer again gets into trouble. An old skinny trumpet player gets irate at having his picture taken and goes after the Waygoer and his camera. Luckily the trumpeter’s quite drunk, so soon he stumbles away.

We decide to go for lunch. There’s three recommended restaurants in the whole town and we’ve already been to two. So we take Alex to the third. Surprisingly there’s a line outside. The Waygoer protests, but we ignore him and wait just five minutes to sit down. A middle-aged Bolivian appears out of nowhere and introduces himself as Roberto, the owner. In minutes, he gives us full account of his life, his 10 children from 5 wives, the places he’s worked at around the world, the celebrities whose personal chef he’s been. He refuses to give us menus and orders a lamb dish for all of us. It’s quite marvelous. The portions are huge but the three of us finish everything. Afterward he comes around with a bottle of homemade mastika, the recipe learnt in Greece. The bliss is complete.

Stumbling out, we split up for an afternoon siesta. I miraculously find Wi-Fi and spend the next three hours raptly catching up with the world. I’m so disoriented when I get back out into the streets that I decide to flank the parade and avoid being soaked again.

Little do I know that I’m setting myself up for a fall – instead of finding a safe way through, I come up to a tall wire fence and find myself walking underneath 6-storey high stands full of people throwing things at each other. The stench is almost unbearable but I forge on. Finally an opening! But it’s only a way into the thickest part of the parade, not a way out. In the next half an hour I push my way through thousands of people filling five blocks, many of which trying to drench me in water, foam or both. By the time I make it to the Waygoer’s house, I’m a complete mess, so after an hour I head back to sleep.