Monday, June 21st: Aymara New Year 2010

Reflecting on the first rays of the new sun
According to the travel agency, this Aymara New Year excursion is going to be a real cultural event; Blandine and I are both quite looking forward to it. I don’t know much about the Aymara culture, but the fact that they chose to start a new year at winter solstice, when days start getting longer, over roughly a week after the birth of Christ, appeals to me. A new year that starts on the 21st of June has zing to it. June 21st is just as good a day to reflect on the past year as January 1st is. Waiting for the first rays of sunlight also seems more symbolically significant than waiting for midnight, a human convention (invention?). At midnight, which really isn’t the middle of the night, there is no visual cue that something new is starting. When I was young we used to go to grandma to celebrate the coming of a new year and we waited for the little bird in my grandmother’s grandfather clock to come out and do its thing twelve times. Nothing magic to it, the bird did the same it does on any other day of the year. But we liked it because we got to stay up real late and even got presents at midnight. Aymara kids get to stay up a lot longer during their New Years celebration. These are probably some of the better thoughts that cross my mind during the 1.5 hour bus ride to Tiahuanaco. A look around the bus draws many more questions in my mind.

The bus is full of teenagers, dressed up to the nines and catching up on gossip. Are we on a high-school outing? Older people are sprinkled here and there all over the bus: they are also coming out for the cultural experience, like us. Or have they sacrificed their sleep to chaperone their youngsters during this all-nighter? I conclude that there definitely is much interest in local culture from Bolivians themselves, it seems very much like a family celebration. We Europeans could learn something from these Bolivians.
The night is pitch black and there´s little more light inside the bus. The latest Lady Gaga and David Guetta hits resound from the back of the bus, someone had the good idea to cheer up this silent bus ride. Some of us hum along to stay awake, to do something on this bus ride, but the gentle rocking of the bus works like a Valium tablet and before long most everyone is asleep.

In the zone
Once arrived, everyone is guided into this party room, a zone dedicated just to the people on the tour. The word “zone” is a good description: It looks like a discotheque, sounds like a discotheque, yet everyone has big winter jackets on, and gloves and hats, and you can see your own breath because the room is not heated. That explains the absence of doors at the entrance and exit. To meet some of the locals I’m going to need a REAL ice breaker. No time to think about that, a few youngsters in leather jacket have set up a DJ table against one wall of the “zone” and hard-core techno music starts blasting around our ears, combined with a psychedelic light show reflected against the ceiling. The host comes around with free goodie bags of the event sponsors. I open mine and find a kit to make glow-in-the-dark glasses, a bright yellow techno-whistle on a wrist band, and a bright yellow felt Santa Claus hat. Huh? Weren´t we supposed to have a cultural experience with Andean flutes and people dressed in colorful ponchos??? Time to look at the program again:

SOLSTICIO EN TIWANAKU
Domingo 20 de Junio de 2010

22.00 Concentración Plaza Bolivia, avenida Arce, Lado del hotel Radisson.
22.30 Salida rumbo a la localidad de Tiwanaku
11.30 llegada y acomodación área de descanso

Lunes 21 de Junio 2010

00.30 Fogata bailable con la saya afro-boliviana
04.30 Entrega de regalo de nuestros auspiciadores y ticket de ingreso
05.00 Entrada a las ruinas y tour por las ruinas
06.15 salida del sol y bailes rituales
07.30 concentración área de descanso
08.30 Salida rumbo a la ciudad de La Paz
09.00 llegada (iglesia de San Francisco)

No mention at all about a big techno-bunny night, yet everybody is into it and yellow felt hats have started bouncing all over the zone. This place is going M-A-D. And there’s all-you-can-drink free coffee until 4AM.
Outside, the open fire is being set up outside, a warmly appreciated initiative I might add. Once the majority of the crowd has gathered around the open fire (it must be close to freezing point now) the Afro-Bolivian band start doing their stuff. Within minutes all people around the fire are dancing and singing along. This night might still turn out to be reasonable. I thought too quickly though: at the end of the second song, about 20 minutes into their performance, the band just stops. Everybody look at each other, some scream for encores, but to no avail. The drums are rounded up and the band goes back inside. Bizarre! Blandine and I try to make the most of it and go back inside to dance a bit to techno, just because it keeps us warm.

A coca and no smile
At 4:30 we finally get to queue to get onto the sacred Tiahuanacu grounds. Thousands of people, indigenous and one-off tourists alike, are drumming to get through the entry gates and find a prime spot, so potential for chaos is great, but there´s heavy military presence to control the crowd. In the queue we meet with another couple of our age: they’re from around La Paz and before we know it we are offered to chew coca leaves to help us feel a bit warmer. Blandine´s been hooked on the altitude sickness-countering virtues of coca-leaf tea since she set foot in La Paz, so now it’s my turn to give this “wonder medicine” a try, I guess. I chew the 5 leaves to a little ball and flunk it between my left cheek and my teeth. The conversation continues and I masticate as if my life depended on it, but nothing happens: my cheek doesn’t get numb, and I’m still feeling rather cold. In the mean time we’ve made it to the centre of the temple site and are standing still, packed as sardines. My feet consider turning blue, so10 minutes into the real New Year’s “experience” I swallow some of leaves to speed up the desired effect. Nothing. Our friends add leaves to their coca-leaf balls and offer me some more, but I pass, nothing is happening. My body might be programmed to act on alcohol only. Mmmm, a hot spiked tea might be just what I need now.

Dumbass (me), I’m not supposed to swallow the leaves, kilos of spat out coca leaf crud, stuck in between the cobble stones of La Paz should have given me a huge hint over the last few days. Oh well.

Down and out in Aymara hills
The tour that was promised is just not going to happen, the tour management is nowhere to be seen. We spend the next two hours waiting for the sun to come up, and getting away from clingy drunks. Every other person seems to carry around soft drink bottles filled with “home brew”. Bolivians drink as much as the English, only they don’t seem to hold their liquor as well. They don’t care about holding up appearances; they drink to get absolutely smashed. As the day breaks, the blabbering drunks around us get faces, and their not exactly runway models. Rather “runaway from” models! Before I get to take in the whole battlefield, the Aymara high priest lights a huge pyre and starts performing the New Year’s ritual. A bunch of high-placed guests are invited to walk around the pyre, I only recognize one of them, Evo Morales. As much as he is revered, his appearance does not seem to evo-ke (sorry, I had to) any big reactions. I scream “EVO” from the top of my lungs, but nobody follows. Evo doesn’t scream back “Jan” either. Weird.

After a while the ritual ends. The sun has come up from behind the mountains, but a huuuge cloud prevents the rays from hitting the Tiahuanacu statue. And I’m still equally cold. People around me start going back, they’re giving up. The sun and the statue aren't likely to connect for the next few hours and it’s past 8AM now. Even indigenous people are going back. It’s been a long night and they’ve got breakfast from one of the local stands on their mind. Blandine and I give in as well, and walk back past Evo Morales’ heavily guarded helicopter, to meet with the others. I got to cover my disappointment with some calories. Got to give these sad, lonely coca leaves in my stomach some friends to play with. Still no coca leaf effect, by the way. This cold night has been a major disappointment on many fronts. I understand Bolivian event organisers want to put something together that could tickle European tourists’ interests, but this? To say it in French “C’était un nouvel an amère, pas Aymaire.” Great food for blog entries, I guess.

We get back to LaPaz around 11AM, check back in to the Fuentes hotel and plan to spend the rest of the day recovering. We’ll also have to repack, tomorrow is the start of our 4-day Apolobamba trek. The guy at the front desk will have a chance to redeem himself by not missing our wake-up call.