Happy Wanderers: Feliz Año Nuevo!!!

Yesterday we woke up at 4am in order to walk out of town to one of the hills overlooking the city and ring in the Andean New Year with the local Potosinos. Winter solstice means the start of the New Year to Aymaran and Quechuan people and is celebrated in true Bolivian fashion by lots of pan pipe laden music and LOTS of drinking.

A couple of Bolivian guys who had taken us to the mines swung by the hostel at 4:30am to walk up with us. They went over a few ground rules- one, if someone offers you a drink, you have to drink. Two, if someone asks you to dance, you have to dance. They filled two giant bottled with tea & ‘Bolivian whiskey’ (i.e 96% proof Ceibo) and off we went.

At the top of the hill were hundreds of people playing music, drinking and stamping feet waiting for the first rays of the sun. It was freezing, but the hot tea (and toxic booze) helped ward off the cold a little. Once we finished our two bottles we bought more spiked cinnamon flavoured tea…it’s weird, despite the fact that you are basically drinking metho it didn’t seem to get us drunk. Judging by the state of our Bolivian friends though, this is not the case for everyone.

As the first rays of the sun peek over the horizon, the local shaman performs a ritual, sacrificing a llama, throwing its blood over the crowd and then, bizarrely, blowing up the animals lungs so that they resemble a giant horn.

Then all the people in the crowd turn to the sun with their hands up, waiting to receive the sun’s energy and presumably, good fortune for the year to come.

Once the sun had properly risen, we walked down the other side of the hill to a small village where the drinking and dancing continued. We abandoned Bolivian whiskey in favour of beers & chicha (a fermented maize beer tradition across Bolivia & Peru) and boogied in the plaza with the locals.