For a moment, I thought I had somehow wandered into a scene from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Night had descended and suddenly throngs of people in carnival costumes were rushing past me: dancers reflecting the flourescent colours of their clothing off the strips of sequins on their chests, a man in the second half of a horse costume looking around wildly for his front, a 4 foot man carrying a tuba which nearly outweighed him, the incessent shouts and bangs of drums and bells rattling around in our heads and scrambling all other senses. Somehow, we had wandered right into the middle of a parade. We forced ourselves to the fringes of the crowd and a semblance of order appeared: groups of teenagers and young adults were twirling and leaping down the main drag, girls in exaggerated make-up and boys sweating buckets in their full-length outfits, all with matador jackets and boots weighted down in silver cowbells. Behind them came a band, blaring high-paced music ringed in the sound of cymbals and snare drums whose objective seemed more to bewilder with crowd with noise than to create a beat for the dancers. Once one troup had passed, their music fading to just a ringing in our ears, a new outfit immediately cleared the corner and started the barrage all over again. Aymara flags and banners flew over the procession, borne by beaming family members who had prepped their sons and daughters just a few minutes earlier, retouching eye shadow and adjusting ribbons as they prepared to take place in the local (‘traditional’?) dance competition. N and I grinned at each other once we managed to gather our bearings in the insanity – this attack on the senses might have been a little much after the exhaustion of travel, but Arica was seeing us off in the best, most flambouyant way possible.
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