Carnival in Cochabamba

Posted by on Dec 24, 2012 in Bolivia, Countries | 8 comments

Saturday 8th of November happened to be the Entrada Universitaria Carnival in Cochabamba. We were completely unaware of this event until we went downtown for a walk and found out about this great carnival, which is much smaller than the Cochabamba Carnival. Still, it was our first carnival, so it was great! Check out the summary and photos we took.

While we were walking on our way to El Prado after having worked all morning and early afternoon, we started to see some Cochabambinos and Cochabambinas wearing uniforms like Cholitas and Cholitos, performing dances in front of a local orchestra. We thought, “There must have been an event that is now finished, and we’ve missed it as usual! (See Chicago jazz festival.)

But then we saw a second group, walking this time with different uniforms, dancers in the front and orchestra behind. And then a third one. At that point we thought, “We didn’t miss anything!” And we took out our camera. We walked for more than two hours, following the 40 groups that were performing different kind of music and dances, from traditional indigenous dances to Spanish style ones.

Here is what we saw:

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The dancers-Cochabamba Carnival

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The orchestra-Cochabamba Carnival

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The costumes-Cochabamba Carnival

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The costumes-Cochabamba Carnival

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The indigenous dances Cochabamba Carnival

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The indigenous dances- Cochabamba Carnival

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Another nice mask-Cochabamba carnival

At the end of Ballivian Avenue there was a jury, but we don’t know who won because the results were four days later.

A very nice and colorful day!

8 Comments

  1. I really need to get to Bolivia. Have gone around it twice while traveling down there, but never rolled over there. Really need to in 2013 and this post helps explain why 😉

    • It’s good to see you here Michael, i’ve been following your blog for couple of years now 🙂
      Bolivia is a great country, more expensive than I thougt but is great. The people are so friendly and fun. We are here in Bolivia till end of January.

  2. Hahahah seems like the skirts of the dancing (twisting) girls just keep getting shorter and shorter over there.

    • LOL, that is absolutely right!

  3. My mom is from that city- she was shocked last time I was with her (which was a while ago) and she saw this. She told me it didn’t use to be that way. Salam and Ramadan Mubarak from London, Ontario by the way.

    • Huh! You’ll be surprised if we published the rest of the album. London, we regret not visiting this lovely city when we were in Canada. Thanks for the greetings 🙂

  4. Stumbled upon this webpage by accident, but its really lovely! Im leaving for Argentina, Bolivia and Peru in a week for 4 months, so if you have more lovely tips, they’re more than welcome =)

    • Thanks for stoping by, I will contact you on your email for more tips.

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