El Festividad del Gran Poder

---

It was MUCH, MUCH worse than arriving late to the front row seats at the theatre.

When I first arrived in La Paz nearly one month earlier, I couldn´t have imagined that I´d still be around for the famous El Festividad del Gran Poder on the 10th of June. Dissapointed, but sure that I´d be long gone by the time THAT came around. Well, I got sucked into the void that is La Paz and so.... there I was, having stayed on an extra couple of days just for it, awoken on festival day by the sound of a brass band coming down the street outside my room. So anxious to get front row seats, while Pen and SHannon were sleeping I rushed down at 9am and put a 30Boliviano deposit (to pay for the last seat on arrival) with a lovely young seat-selling guy, who assured me of the best seats in his stand, right up front. I said we´d be back in an hour or so, and that was 'no problem, no problem seniorita'.

Our team took a while to get going, and reasoning that the festival was going all day (not to mention the maddeningly monotonous marching band music and the dance troups were already showing signs of repetition) we rocked up about 1pm.

Now tHe streets are PACKED with people, there are no through-ways to the other side of the road, and it becomes clear that getting to our seats is going to be a NIGHTMARE. THis is how it goes:

Step 1. choose a team leader to break a line (actually penny self-selected-a mistake in hindsight)
Step 2. Push through five layers thick (condensed milk thick) of people
Step 3. Avoid (ignore?) the lady in the official orange vest who will tell you to get off the garden (the garden is a grass covered median strip in the middle of the road).
Step 4. Go over (or under) the security tape across the garden (whichever you feel will be less embarassing)
Step 5. Ignore the cacophany of spanish coming at you from all directions. Was it 'Hey look here amigos, this will be an easier way over here'or more probably 'get out of the way you stupid gringos, you´ll never make it through and who do you think they are, anyway?!'
Step 6. Negotiate yourself over 4 rows of those unstable plastic white seats using empty seats as stepping stones. The stepping stone seats were not conveniently enough aligned, and people weren´t considerate enough to move, so this was a delicate process, requiring concentration and some big and dangerous stretches. Pen hesitated for far too long at this crucial point, and with all the locals still shouting at us I was forced to yell 'just GO, Pen!!!!!'and give her a little push.

I accidentally stepped on a lady´s skirt during the crossing- which she wrenched out from beneath me and nearly threw me into the river.

There´s little respite when we´re back on solid ground.

Our A-list chairs are occupied by a local La Pazian family. Just as I spot that lovely young guy who has my 30bolivianos, he sees me and legs it. We are now stuck between the audience (who were also a very curious audience to river-crossing performance), and the parading dancers. We huddle awkwardly together like penguins in the middle of a stampede, not knowing what to do next.

Going back the way we came is out of the question, but we have to do something because the dancers keep bumping into us and soon there will be shouts of 'down in front' (in spanish-whatever that is).

Shannon takes the initiative to walk along the edge against the flow of the parade, for lack of anywhere else to go. A few hundred metres up we reconvene, squatting on the ground at the viewer´s feet, careful not to get bumped on the head with the drums coming past. I think we should lie low for a few minutes, then make our way back to our stand to make a surprise attack on the seat-seller, which we do, but he is nowhere to be seen.

Fortunately there are some seats in the stand opposite, which we buy, and I spend the first half hour on vigil willing this dodgy bugger to come back. I will jump up and run across the middle of the parade if I have to, tap him on the shoulder, or tackle him if necessary. He never comes back. AFter a while, and with the help of a passing ice-cream vendor, I forget about him.

The parade is fantastic, the best parade I´ve ever been to. For more, you´ll have to see photos. The costumes were amazing, but lets just say that for a catholic country, some of the dancing girls´ outfits were quite short.

---