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Autumn arrived in Sucre, replacing the summer tempests with long nights and mornings of cool rain. When the sun came out hummingbirds thrummed among the late flowers and the soggy street dogs re-took the streets. The hard sun lost its edge and the evenings grew longer and slower.
Another important date for the Bolivian calendar followed close behind the official start of autumn; March 23rd, remembered as the day that Bolivia lost its coastline to Chile in the war of the Pacific. The word in Spanish for this is enclaustromiento, which captures perfectly the sense of shrinking borders, and of confinement within the continent.
Every one of Bolivia’s neighbours had, at some point around the end of the nineteenth century, encroached into its territories, annexing them and their potential resource wealth. Brazil claimed great stretches of jungle just before the rubber trade collapsed. Paraguay claimed much of the Chaco badlands, but found none of the hoped-for petroleum there. Chile, on the other hand, not only took Bolivia’s coast, and its guano (used for fertiliser) and saltpetre (used in explosives) supplies, but subsequently found the world’s largest copper source in the previously-overlooked deserts that linked Bolivia to the coast.
It is the coast, though, that Bolivians yearn for. This is a cause that is still often brought up when Bolivians talk to me about their history; a source of shame and also vague and improbably hope that somehow someday a way to the ocean might open up again.
The War was fought between Chile – goaded on by British interests who sought to profit from the opening up of the nitrate (guano and saltpetre) resources – and Bolivia and Peru. Every time the War is brought up here, so too is the fact that Chile invaded during Carnival, a time held sacred and reserved for revelry. As a result Bolivia was caught off guard. Even so, the war carried on for several years, fought on land and sea, with old wooden warships and newer steel ones. The Chilean armed forces were far better equipped, bringing that terrible victory to Chile.
More neutral sources (i.e. Wikipedia) tell a slightly different story, with the exact territory before the war never specifically delineated (due to the rather rough partitioning up of South American in colonial times), and with a dispute over resources already raging when Chile sent in troops. Thereafter it was Bolivia that declared war.
Today the war is remembered mainly through the figure of Eduardo Avaroa, a civilian who lead the Bolivian defence in a skirmish, and an early casualty of the war. Every city seems to have a street and often a monument dedicated to Avaroa. Usually he is depicted already fallen, but raising his hand or gun or head in defiance, a national martyr and a symbol of the pervasive spirit of defiance toward larger, outside powers that is so characteristic here.
The chances of Bolivia ever escaping its enclaustromiento are basically zero. Not without another bitter war at least. This is probably why March 23 is still an important date. It is a chance to remember, and to dream about what Bolivia once was, and what it would be nice for it to someday be again. Until that unlikely golden age arrives, there is little to do but eat trout from Lake Titicaca and the other smaller bodies of water still belonging to Bolivia, and to imagine what that great and distant ocean must look and taste and smell and feel like.
I arrived back in Sucre a few days before Carnival was due to start. As i had blogged about earlier, the informal festivities had started months ago, with the hurling of water balloons and the dumping of buckets of water from balconies onto unsuspecting passers-by. this had crescendoed in the ensuing weeks, until every second bus had the barrel of a water pistol poking ominously from one of its windows, and every public plaza was lined with old ladies selling water balloons, and young men throwing them at whichever girl they most fancied.
In Bolivia Carnival is celebrated most vibrantly in Oruro, a town otherwise famous for bad food, high altitude, pickpockets, and for being a gritty industrial town with absolutely no tourist appeal. Except during Carnival.
Oruro is only 8 to 10 hours from Sucre by bus – a tiny distance compared to most in Bolivia - but i found myself utterly unenthused about the prospect of spending more time away from my pokey little room in Sucre. The spirit of adventure was ebbing low in me; apparently it does happen from time and time. I assume it is a temporary situation.
Anyway, i celebrated Carnival in Sucre. Carnival, which is essentially one great and frantic spasm of exuberance before the (theoretical) sobriety of the 40 days of Lent begins.
On the Friday every school and college in the city took the streets, the students dancing to the repetitive strains of their marching bands. They were greeted by a barrage of water balloons, by hoses and buckets and cans of foam, but they danced on through the street, unperturbed and heroic.
Being a more reserved gringo, i had my criticisms of all the frivolity; in a country where a great number of people fetch their own water from rivers, and where a great number of houses have no plumbing, and no reliable piped water, how responsible was it to be dashing hundreds of litres of water against the streets, and against other people? The infectious fun of the parades permitted few questions or concerns; it was impossible not to get caught up in the immense water war in the central plaza. At any one moment tens of brightly coloured globes hung suspended in the air, about to crash down on some reveller, or unfortunate vendor.
Each day after the Friday was quieter than the last, as family barbecues became the predominant form of celebration. Marching bands still played through the streets, but more intermittently. The barrages of balloons became more furious as the tipsy, horny youths in the main plaza had no one to take their festive spirit out upon. The central market became the dominant warzone, as the children of all the market ladies turned their water gun on each other and anyone who happened to need to buy food, drink, pirate DVDs or their own water weapons.
I was joined by a trio of couchsurfers, who were the most hospitable guests i have ever had (yes, take note: guests can be hospitable too). The fun of Carnival was greatly amplified by having the ever-enthusiastic Cory, Nick and Laina with me. With them i launched myself into the water war, and found how different an experience walking the streets could be. instead of paranoia, and wondering where the inevitable balloon of water would come flying from, i found myself an arbiter of pseudo-justice, punishing those boys who targeted unarmed girls, and flinging balloons at anyone who looked set to fling them at me. Deterrence, i called it, but what else was it but the inescapable spirit of Carnival?
On the Tuesday the streets went properly quiet and began to dry out. Blackened braziers appeared outside businesses, and piles of charcoal wafted their acrid smoke into the air. This, the final day of Carnival was greeted with more solemnity and ceremony, as these little offerings were made and the city renewed. Fire crackers echoed and reported all day through the city, and cars and homes were bedecked in streamers and balloons. hours upon hours of meat were charred on barbecues, and libations of beers were poured out to Pachamama (the earth goddess) in every street. This was a day of fire, to complete four days (and several preceding months) of water, and with it Carnival came to an end.
Rainclouds descended over the city that would linger for days, and the streets on Wednesday morning were eerily quiet. There was no risk of being pelted by balloons, the open windows of buses and the revving of passing motorbikes no longer elicited concern and fear of falling water. In a moment Sucre returned to its peaceful self, and it was safe to walk the streets, to sit in the plazas, to look up at the magnificent belltowers without fear of attack.
I still haven’t been robbed on this trip (or in fact on any). I survived Cochabamba without loss, and in my first days walking about Sucre, I found myself able to relax more and more. Sucre is an old and elegant capital. It lacks the bustle and crush of Cochabamba, which is essentially a market town (and contains apparently the biggest market in South America). The central market in Sucre is small and well laid out. There are no swells of human traffic.
So I find and found myself cautiously relaxed, at least in terms of theft-and-violence risks. But in my first days in Sucre another threat quickly rose to fill the void. With the new year begins the countdown to Carnival, celebrated at the end of February in many parts of South America (not just Rio with its flamingo-ladies).
During Carnival the young and the indolent amuse themselves by hurling water balloons at strangers. The majority of the assailants are young (I presume single) guys, who target all girls with the aim of seducing them through annoyance. The girls do fight back to a limited extent, and the really young pre-seduction aged kids get in on the act too.
While I am told that everyone gets drenched during Carnival (and some people get bruised when the greatest lotharios freeze the water balloons before throwing them), many people are also bombarded in the weeks and months before the real festivities. The streets of Sucre in January are already littered with the spent forms of lobbed balloons. Gringos are a popular target, along with girls. Gringa girls are particularly popular targets. There is no need to savour the reaction of a wet gringo. Doors open, balloons are thrown, doors are slammed. Sometimes I can catch no more than the brief blur of the arm of my assailant.
And so I have learned a new paranoia. I have learned and am learning to suspect doorways and ajar doors. I cast interrogatory eyes over balconies and second-story windows. I assume the worst of all groups of idle Bolivians. I scowl at anyone who looks twice at me, or points me out to their buddies. In these ways I have reduced the number of drenchings I have received. In my first days I was splashed almost daily.
All these precautions are of limited use, though, as the wet season rolls on and storms come charging over the city. Sucre is high enough that storms can coalesce over the city in almost no time, bringing great snares of lightning, and thunder with enough force to set off car alarms all over the city. When a storm hits there is no staying dry. There is only resignation and the subsequent wringing and hanging out of clothes, and the resumption of the cat-and-mouse played daily with the water balloonists.
