Saturday, June 24, 2006

Day of Burning: 24 june 2006

As I mentioned last night, today is the day of burning, 24 June, when the fields are burnt to return their nutrients to the soil. This date is celebrated in England as midsummers day, but the festivities are bigger here.

In city, burning isn't allowed, so last night the city celebrated with loads of fireworks. These didn't come out too good on my camera, but I went up to the top floor and took the photo to right.

The next day and night, celebrations continued with groups of people organising their own processions throughout the day and night.

Processions ranged from native bolivians, to african bolivians descended from Angolan slaves brought into bolivia hundreds of years ago, to gay groups.

In between this, we made an expedition to Tiwanaka, and ancient site that predates (1500BC-1200 BC) and preceeds the Incas, and which our guide said was a multicultural centre where the monuments were dedicated to preserving peace between the different ethnic elements. Our guide said that contact may have been made between the Tiwanaka and cultures afar afield as Asia and Egypt.

2 comments:

Beau Vecta said...

Stunning, Mr Nails. It is no shame that you have to return.

repro said...

Amaxing = even more climactically mind-blowing than amazing.