Bombs, buckets and hosepipes

The title just about sums up Carnival, which after four days of celebration, ended on tuesday (well, not quite for us, it was Marioly's mum's birthday yesterday and about 50 guests popped over during the evening).

While most people know about Carnival in Brazil, the next biggest Carnival on the continent is probably in Oruro, about 4 hours from Cochabamba. Marioly was not keen to go as it is as famous for its wonderful costumes and dancing as for the number of extremely drunk people in the streets.


Also Carnival is famous for getting soaked. There is little point trying to avoid it, one way or another you will get wet as people throw water bombs and buckets of water over you, or if you are in a private party, the chances are that someone will get hold of the hosepipe and soak all the guests. The worst was a journey that we took in a taxi, his windows were broken so we were unable to close them, making us a very enviable target. Two buckets of water later we arrived at our destination.

Carnival is not just getting wet. There are lots of BBQs, visiting family and friends, dancing and to my delight playing football. We found ourselves at a bit of a posh do on monday where I was making goal assists for the Bolivian Vice President's brother (and getting a black eye in the process, though not his fault). May be next year in Rio?!