Happy New Year

No, I haven’t got confused. Today is the Aymaran new year and winter solstice in Bolivia. (I am hoping to find an Aymaran birthday so I can celebrate that twice a year too). To mark it I got up inordinately early to head up to Tiwanaku, an ancient religious city dating back above 1500 years, situated 70 kilometres outside La Paz near Lake Titicaca.

As we arrived, it reminded me of Glastonbury festival without the rain and mud and about 25 degrees colder and with slightly more ponchos. In the shadowy pre-dawn, we joined hundreds of people streaming into the old temple. There was a buzz in the crowd, some fairly drunk Bolivians swaying next to a bonfire, someone playing a didgeridoo (see, just like Glastonbury) and little attention paid to the official speeches by various Aymaran dignatories and priests.

Then at last, fingers of sunlight crept above the horizon. Everyone held out their hands, to absorb the cosmic energy, although I doubt I absorbed much because my fingers were so numb.

But soon the light transformed the landscape spreading tentacles of warmth and colour. To celebrate, lots of Bolivians started Conga dancing to drums and pipes brandishing brilliantly rainbow coloured Wiphala flags. I can understand why Aymaran cultures worshipped the sun in this climate. Without it, the altiplano would be desperate, icy and desolate. But sun here brings life and colour to a beautiful but inhospitable environment.

After a tour around the site, we had a small ceremony presided over by an Aymaran priest where we burnt offerings of coca leaves, sweets and an attractive-looking llama foetus (photo included in the gallery) to pray for a happy and prosperous new year.

Happy new year!