Day 95 - The town of Yotalla
February 18 - Yotalla, Bolivia
Based on the suggestion of our Spanish instructors and interest from a new German friend traveling solo, we headed to Yotalla in the morning on a bus, a small town outside of Sucre. The sights and smells of the market, Mercado Campesino, on the way to get on the bus were impressive.
Once we got on the bus it was about a hour drive to Yotalla, which is a smaller pueblo outside of Sucre. We were packed into this microbus made for people with shorter legs than us and our tall German friend. The bus stopped outside of Yotalla and forced everybody out because the roads into the village were shut down for the day due to the Carnival activities.
We found one really cool lookout up a long group of stairs that had a great view of the entire village. We were told all the Carnival parade would take place in or around the main plaza so we headed there next. As we walked around the plaza, there were tons of vendors selling all parts of a pig (including the pig head), fresh juice, ice cream, and globos (water balloons), lots and lots of globos.
Around noon we started to get pretty hungry so we headed towards the main food market building in Yotalla. Upstairs we found a modest cafeteria, which was full of people including lots of police getting fed before all the exciting parts of carnival. We settled on a dish called Saice, which was a marinated chicken and vegetable mixture served with a side of rice. Delicious, and cheap! We paid something less than 2 USD per plate, and were stuffed when we finished.
After eating, we walked around the plaza more. A few globos found us, but we were staying pretty dry until we ended up in the wrong part of the plaza and just started to get pelted. We seeked safety on a park bench near a beer stand, trying to act nonchalant. We then met some already drunk locals that gave us lots of suggestions, including that we should go get ice cream on a stick from one of the guy's brothers nearby. Chelsea couldn't resist. They had quite the variety of Picole, which is basically frozen fruit juice on a stick....aka popsicle.
After getting ice cream more and more water balloons started flying. We soon realized that we should find a place to lay low (maybe hide) while we waited for the parade. It turns out there were actually no safe places to wait anywhere, but we decided to hang out on a side street near the plaza where other locals were also waiting on the sidewalk.
We waited, and waited, for the parade to start but all we saw were more and more people walking into town to join the activities. The most fun people watching was when a group of girls would unknowingly walk by some local older men armed with giant super soakers and full caches of water balloons. Nobody walked away dry.
As more people entered the plaza, it turned into a churning mass of people that were either drinking, holding a can of foam to shoot people with, or holding a handful of water balloons. Because we didn't want to be unarmed we bought a couple bags of balloons for self defense, but that quickly made us targets. Lots of long distance throws from the mass of people in the plaza up the street would hit us, or the wall near us, and pretty soon we were soaked. Chelsea even got smacked on the side of the head causing her a headache. It's all fun and games until somebody gets a concussion from a balloon.
We kept waiting for a parade that never came. Finally we decided we needed to leave before things got really out of hand, as people were drinking more heavily as the day went on and we had been warned to leave early to make sure we had a safe ride home in a bus. We quickly scrambled through a few crowds and tried to get to side streets away from the main mass of people. Balloons were breaking all around us as we jogged along to get out of the main village. We finally made it back to the area where we were let off, and we were one of only a few people leaving the village. Many, many more were walking IN to the village for the nighttime fun. Quick bus ride back to Sucre and we were safe, and soaked.
That night, we headed out to Mercado Campesino to load up on fruits and veggies, and made a delicious dinner.
Based on the suggestion of our Spanish instructors and interest from a new German friend traveling solo, we headed to Yotalla in the morning on a bus, a small town outside of Sucre. The sights and smells of the market, Mercado Campesino, on the way to get on the bus were impressive.
Once we got on the bus it was about a hour drive to Yotalla, which is a smaller pueblo outside of Sucre. We were packed into this microbus made for people with shorter legs than us and our tall German friend. The bus stopped outside of Yotalla and forced everybody out because the roads into the village were shut down for the day due to the Carnival activities.
We got off the bus and started walking around the village. Everything had a feeling that we were in the calm before the storm.
We found one really cool lookout up a long group of stairs that had a great view of the entire village. We were told all the Carnival parade would take place in or around the main plaza so we headed there next. As we walked around the plaza, there were tons of vendors selling all parts of a pig (including the pig head), fresh juice, ice cream, and globos (water balloons), lots and lots of globos.
Around noon we started to get pretty hungry so we headed towards the main food market building in Yotalla. Upstairs we found a modest cafeteria, which was full of people including lots of police getting fed before all the exciting parts of carnival. We settled on a dish called Saice, which was a marinated chicken and vegetable mixture served with a side of rice. Delicious, and cheap! We paid something less than 2 USD per plate, and were stuffed when we finished.
After eating, we walked around the plaza more. A few globos found us, but we were staying pretty dry until we ended up in the wrong part of the plaza and just started to get pelted. We seeked safety on a park bench near a beer stand, trying to act nonchalant. We then met some already drunk locals that gave us lots of suggestions, including that we should go get ice cream on a stick from one of the guy's brothers nearby. Chelsea couldn't resist. They had quite the variety of Picole, which is basically frozen fruit juice on a stick....aka popsicle.
After getting ice cream more and more water balloons started flying. We soon realized that we should find a place to lay low (maybe hide) while we waited for the parade. It turns out there were actually no safe places to wait anywhere, but we decided to hang out on a side street near the plaza where other locals were also waiting on the sidewalk.
We waited, and waited, for the parade to start but all we saw were more and more people walking into town to join the activities. The most fun people watching was when a group of girls would unknowingly walk by some local older men armed with giant super soakers and full caches of water balloons. Nobody walked away dry.
As more people entered the plaza, it turned into a churning mass of people that were either drinking, holding a can of foam to shoot people with, or holding a handful of water balloons. Because we didn't want to be unarmed we bought a couple bags of balloons for self defense, but that quickly made us targets. Lots of long distance throws from the mass of people in the plaza up the street would hit us, or the wall near us, and pretty soon we were soaked. Chelsea even got smacked on the side of the head causing her a headache. It's all fun and games until somebody gets a concussion from a balloon.
We kept waiting for a parade that never came. Finally we decided we needed to leave before things got really out of hand, as people were drinking more heavily as the day went on and we had been warned to leave early to make sure we had a safe ride home in a bus. We quickly scrambled through a few crowds and tried to get to side streets away from the main mass of people. Balloons were breaking all around us as we jogged along to get out of the main village. We finally made it back to the area where we were let off, and we were one of only a few people leaving the village. Many, many more were walking IN to the village for the nighttime fun. Quick bus ride back to Sucre and we were safe, and soaked.
That night, we headed out to Mercado Campesino to load up on fruits and veggies, and made a delicious dinner.
Comments
Post a Comment