rufmita: Carnival - 2010 - Tarija, Bolivia

If you have me as a friend on facebook, you have probably noticed the ridiculously fun, juvenile time we had during Carnival. My roommates and I decided on going south for festive holiday. We were warned with horror stories that in Santa Cruz people not only threw water balloons and had foam spray, but they also threw ink - yes - like computer cartridge ink and smudged people with shoe polish. Wanting a little fun, but not that kind of fun, we decided to head to a little town called Tarija.

Tarija is famous for it's grapes and consequently the wine. It's a little, tiny town about a 40 min flight from Santa Cruz. At about 2000 meters the climate is perfect, dry and the altitude helps the grapes ripen a bit faster. Although they celebrate Carnival the rumor was that they did it with a little more class. Perfect.

We arrived early Saturday morning and promptly joined a wine tour. At 9 am we piled in a mini van and cracked open some local wines. We headed out to the "country" and visited three wineries. Saw some amazing geology along the way, got a little buzz and then headed back to town.

Remember my last post, asking the mayoral candidates to take a look at cleaning up the city? Well they need to look to Tarija. What a great, clean, quaint, safe town. If you look on the map you can see that it is very close to Argentina, so the rumor is that it has more influence from the Argentine people than Bolivians, which could explain a lot.

We walked and walked around the city, several times. Headed out to the cemetery in the hope of catching a glimpse of the devil burning that takes place before lent - no luck, but we did get some good pics of the cemetery itself.

Then it was time for the parade. I didn't have my camera so I don't have any of the hilarious pics to post... You'll have to look on facebook!

Oh wait, I just swiped this one from facebook. Doesn't this picture tell it all?

After the parade and getting soaked with water and foam, oh and getting a beer literally poured on my head (apparently it's the "tradition" (we headed out for a walk). Oh, look, there's a Zoo here, let's check it out...