Tarabuco festival goes on. Well the town was buzzing this morning, we had been woken by a bunch of men dancing past the house in their finest dress including these wooden shoes with large metal spurs attached that clanged and chimed on every step. This is also market day for the town and people come from miles around to attend, as you could imagine today was massive.
We headed out for a warming coffee and said goodbye to the 12 other bodies that ended up sharing our room. Glen and I ended up on the floor in our sleeping bags but werent too bothered when the others came in to sleep.
After wandering around shopping for a while we found another friend that came out that morning, so we continued as a foursome towering above all the locals.
Around 2pm we had found where the festival was going to be. A blank field just out of town. We watched as several men and a truck assembled this massive 10 metre high altar covering it in all things desired for the following year ranging from beer, coca leaves and half a cow on the top. Slowly groups of dances filed into the grounds and danced around the altar before moving to the side and forming their own dance circles around the music players for that group. Women wailing the local music filled the air and all blended together. This conintued for some hours before a helicopter arrived with much excitement.
There was a total stampede over to the field where this army chopper landed and out stepped the president - we figured out later the stampede was due to the helicopter and not the Pres.
We had a fantastic day and headed back to Sucre for some fantastic Cheese Fondue from the swiss restaurant as a farewell dinner with friends before moving on.
