La Fiesta de San Ignacio de Moxos

Yep, it’s official; we are all fiesta-ed out. We’ve had about as much processions, blaringly loud brass band music and bull riding that we can handle.

The fiesta of San Ignacio de Moxos is the biggest in Bolivia’s Beni department so while in many ways it was the same as the fiesta in Magdalena, it was definitely better organised and seemed to involve a lot less drinking than the citizens of Magdalena managed to squeeze in. Don’t get me wrong, the people of San Ignacio still got on it….just not with the blind abandon that Magdalenan’s threw themselves into party mode.

One night we went to a local bar and made friends with Seripe and Ignacio, two vaqueros (cowboys) from ranches about 6 hours north of San Ignacio. They were already pretty blind by the time we got there but were definitely still on pace- we sat with them for about an hour, maybe an hour and a half. In that time we drank 14 bottles (620ml) between us. The next night we rocked up again and saw a guy sleeping with his head on the table; after a few beers he finally woke up and it turned out to be Ignacio. He’d been there since 11am.

This time around we weren’t the only gringos in town; we hung out with an aussie couple Mitch & Sarah and an English couple Sharon & Paul and gave the Anglo-Saxon reputation as a bunch of pissheads credence.

Weirdly, although the official day of the fiesta is 31 July, all the action took place on the 30^th (maybe to give people a day to get over the hangovers?). We set ourselves up early on the side of the main plaza, ordering round after round of icy cold Paceñas and watching the procession stream past us for hours.

 

The next day we were all feeling slightly tender. A few bottles of water helped. The midday beer helped more. With the procession still spontaneously starting up every hour or so, we continued to hang out in the plaza, people watching and talking shit, until the bull riding started late in the afternoon. We bagged ourselves a table right on the edge of the arena, in the shade, where a very happy beer lady could get to us easily. There was the usual amount of carnage as annihilated Bolivians staggered around in front of angry bulls. We filled crate after crate with empty bottles; between the six of us we managed to put away 18 bottles over the course of the afternoon. When we finally left, the beer lady invited us to come to their bar later. She knew she was onto a good thing.