New Year’s Ritual with a Bolivian Shaman

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For this eventful day we headed to Bolivia with our new Brazilian friend, Leiga, where she had heard there was going to be a ritual to welcome the New Year. Once across the Peruvian border into Bolivia, we went took a boat to Isla Del Sol: The Island of the Sun. This island is on Lake Titicaca, the highest lake in the world, and is an ancient Incan place of worship, with numerous temple ruins still remaining on the island. The island is very dramatic. It rises steeply out of the water and you can hike up and over the hills to the other end in about 4-5 hours. We did this hike on our second day and we were just blown away by the beauty of the landscape, with its inviting beaches, grassy hillsides, the glistening lake below with other nearby islands plunging out of the water and far in the distance, snow capped mountains.

The exciting part of the ceremony:

It all began around 10pm with the full moon watching over us. We went outside around the fire and listened intently as the shaman explained something (he had no teeth and was difficult to understand, even with my improving Spanish). Then he brought out a tray full of a variety of sacrificial objects (thankfully not the dried out llama fetuses you can buy at the markets) and chanted and danced around it. One by one Dana, Leiga, I, and the local Bolivians, came around and expressed our desires for the New Year and poured alcohol over the objects. When we had finished we threw the entire tray into the fire and some men started playing the drums and traditional Bolivian pan flutes. We all held hands and danced in circles around the fire. It was mesmerizing. We spent the rest of the night under the full moon, drinking wine and dancing around the fire like wild children.

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