Gran Poder Festival in La Paz

Very last minute decision to go to La Paz, but after hearing about the festival of Gran Poder happening on the weekend, decided it was definitely worth a trip.

We left Cochabamba on friday evening on the night bus to La Paz. This was my first experience of the Cochabamba bus terminal and I have to say it was not an experience I will soon forget. It is so congested, and there are so many people crowding around, there is not much order or organisation and the constant attempts by companys to try and get you to take their bus by shouting their destination in your face is quite unpleasant.

We headed over to where we assumed we would board our bus from and typically it ran on Bolivian time so was a bit late. We finally located our bus and boarded. We got the semi-cama which means the seats recline a fair way. There is also the regular, and full cama which has seats that are virtually beds, but this is quite expensive.

There were 12 of us in total so we had our own comparment on the bottom of the bus which was awesome. It was generally pretty comfy though I did not manage to sleep much. I was drifting off at one point to awaken to Rocio conversing in Spanish with some random Bolivian and I wondered what the hell was going on, turns out that someone needed to go to the toilet but we could not get out of our compartment as it had a weird way of opening the door so they were knocking to get this guys attention and then he was letting us out.

The bus stopped a few times along the way, once when we were barely out of Cochabamba for quite a long time. I slept between 3 and 5.30 and then drifted until 6.30 when we arrived in La Paz.

We got off the bus and it was bloody freezing, I had heard it was much colder in La Paz but was not expecting it to be as cold as it was. We walked to our hostel called The Adventure Brew and they very kindly allowed us to check in and go to our room. There was a small problem when only 5 of the group had taken their passports the rest of us took photocopies, but they finally accepted this and checked into our room.

Our room was in the Adventure Brew Two which was a short walk down the road, we had our own 12 bed dorm which was cool. It was clean and had a great view of the street where the parade took place. We dumped our stuff and headed off to find some breakfast. We went to a really nice cafe where I had some muesli and yoghurt, and then we set off for the parade.

Before we went into the cafe everyone was still setting up for the parade but when we came out it was in full swing, and we staked out a place along the route. The streets were lined with people but we managed to find some really good seats along the route, which we paid 20bs for (2 pounds) and we settled in to watch the parade.

The Gran Poder happens once in a year in La Paz between May and June, there are around 25,000 dancers who spend thousands on their costumes. It has been going for many years, and apparently gets bigger and more impressive year on year. There were many different indigenous groups partaking in the parade. It was so vibrant and lively. The parade started around 10 and it went on non stop until 11, the sheer scale of it was very impressive. More so the dancers and the viewers lining the streets, who started drinking pretty early. We were constantly passed by people selling food and drink. We left the parade around lunchtime with the added bonus of a bit of sunburn.

We went in search of some lunch an headed into an Italian which looked ok, but was not. It was the worst meal I have had in Bolivia. It was a simple fettucini with tomato sauce not much to go wrong you would think, but the sauce was awful it was so tasteless just watery so I ate barely any of it. We then wandered the streets of La Paz for a bit, including a trip to the witches market where I bought a few souveniers and some coca candy. I refrained from buying a llama fetus, the sight of it was enough for me.

We headed back to the hostel, where I had a very cold shower, apparently everybody else managed to get the hot water to work apart from me. After I had got in I realized I had forgotten my shampoo, thankfully had my handy travel wash with me so that was fine.

In the evening we went to the adventure brew bar which was really nice, we also got a free beer each with our stay, the colonia was really nice. We headed out in search of a shop to buy alcohol but after traipising the streets of La Paz with no success we decided that everyone was probably at the festival so there would be no where to buy any. We decided to head back and just buy a crate of beer from one of the street sellers.

After several huaris and a game of ring of fire, we merrily headed off to bed. I was absolutely freezing in the night, mostly because I somehow came out of my liner, and only slept with one blanket when we had two, silly me.

We woke early, the hangover was not nice, but I decided to go with some of the others to buy our return bus tickets as we had to get them beforehand. We headed back to the hostel for our free all you can eat pancake breakfast (3 is all I can eat!), if you stayed there for more than a few days I think it would be less than that aswell.

We then headed off in search of the witches market, it seems that the people of La Paz were equally hungover as they rose pretty late in the day. We found it, and it was several streets of artesenias selling handcrafted goods, alpaca wear, jewellary, it was really nice and I will definitely go back there when I return to La Paz.

We headed back to Cochabamba at 2pm, the bus ride was not too bad, about 7 and a half hours this time round. We did not have our own compartment this time, but I am pretty sure that the bus was upgraded to a full cama as the seats were way comfier, they were like arm chairs. We were on the top of the double decker, thankfully I was sat in the second row as the view went from beautifully panoramic as we left La Paz to somewhat terrifying as we neared cochabamba, the roads were windy and the driving perilous. Being overtaken by an oil tanker on a blind corner is not very fun. We also stopped numerous times along the way and picked up random hitchikers inluding a small child. This was in the middle of absolutely nowhere, you just wonder where these people have come from and where they are going.

La Paz was a really cool city and I am looking forward to going back and seeing more of it. The altitude is really high there, I think around 4000m above sea level, but again I suffered no adverse effects other than feeling a little out of breath when walking up hills. It is very different to Cochabamba, very vibrant but that may have just been because of the parade. There were a lot more tourists in La Paz aswell, in Cochabamba I have seen barely any other tourists during my 5 weeks here, but in La Paz they seem to be everywhere.

The scenery and views of La Paz as I have found in all Bolivia are beautiful, surrounded by mountains, inluding the stunningly beautiful snow capped peak Illimani. I cannot wait to go back and see more of it.

This week I am hoping to do the Che Trail, Santa Cruz, Samaipata, Vallegrande and La Higuera, I really hope I get to do it.