This weekend starting Friday celebrations for Bolivia´s 186th anniversary of their independence begin. Friday morning the high school students & uni students march and dance - some of them in special folkloric costumes. Unfortunately I missed these because of my spanish class, but it is a big thing, participation is compulsory. On Saturday the military marched and at night there was a concert by the military bands in an open air amphitheatre and the place was packed and the rest of the miltary arrived in full dress uniform. I saw some apparently high ranking women soldiers as well. At one point an obviously senior female officer called a junior male soldier over and he stood at attention , I wondered what this did for his machismo ;) - a little side note as I type this in the Las Torres Hostal in Sucre the girl on the reception desk next to me is typing away on a manual typewriter !
The concert was interesting apart from the band they had some military precision band pieces but only those sitting 3 rows up from the ground could see this as once the seats around the amphitheatre were filled the people started standing around the perimeter on the VIP area. The MP´s who were stationed every 3 metres along the perimeter made an initial half hearted attempt to clear them but gave up. They also had some guest singers as well and a visit from the Pink Panther !
The band played such classics as Thus Spake Zarathustra, the Pink Panther theme, Moon River along with some local favourites. The last 2 songs for the night were Exodus .. (when was the last time - if ever you heard that sung ? ) in Spanish and then the reprise in English and that old Tom Jones classic Delilah completely in english.. interesting. The night was completed by folkloric dancers from each of the regions doing traditional dances in their special costumes.
On the way home, which was on the parade route, I noticed groups of people already camping out on the hard wooden stands to get a good position for the big parade the next day
its still winter here and it would have been very cold.
Anyway next day I arrived about 9:00 for the big march but this was all the unions, local workers groups & community groups from all the regions all the way to La Paz which is in the north. (Tarija is in the south west , close to the Argentinian border.. so close in fact that you can catch a long distance bus to Buenos Aires ... only 32hrs but the international buses are very comfortable and very cheap only about $50 US.)
I got quite a good position, however it was on the very sunny side of the street, and prepared for the long wait for the march to start. While we were waiting the military honor guard lined up on the other shadier side in full dress uniform because the President Evo Morales would take part in the march riding in his Hum V. Some of the most senior officers were standing opposite me, they had a chest full of medals and large flowing gold epaulets,
It turned out that I arrived just at the right time, I had managed to work my way along until I was probably 50 or 60 metres from the official dais. Shortly after I arrived the MP´s stopped people from coming any further about 10 metres before where I was.
Eventually the march started and the President came past ( wait for the photos they will come) and then all the organisations started marching some of them in colourful traditional local costume. Shortly after 1pm I left.. there is only so much march past you can take especially in the hot sun and caught the bus back home.
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