Summer Solstice 2009 - Aymara new year 5517

We'd decided to go and check out the summer solstice celebration on June 21st. Summer solstice here marks the new year for the Aymara people; a native ethnic group in the Andes and Altiplano regions of South America which have been around for as long as 2000 years. Roughly 2 million live in Bolivia, Peru and Chile.
The celebration takes place in the ancient pre-Inca ruins of Tiwanaku, near the south-eastern shore of Lake Titicaca. It's quite a journey from Cochabamba, so we decided to make a weekend of it, with a stop in Bolivia's capital La Paz. The bus journey was a standard 10 hourer, which took us through the barren, arrid Altiplano ( high plain) region where the Andes are at their widest point. Leaving Cochabamba the road carves through valleys of red clay and rock, and as it ascends the views get better and the drop on the right-hand side gets concerning. In fact we'd heard just a few days earlier that a bus had gone over the edge a week earlier. Once the road reaches the zenith the Altiplano begins. For hours on end we passed through the various parched shades of beige, light brown and sand, with small settlements scattered here and there made up of various adobe buildings with corragated iron roofs held in place by large rocks. It seems such a harsh environment in which to eck out a living, although I imagine the scenery is transformed during the rainy season. Like in most pueblitos of Bolivia, the walls of houses and buildings had huge political slogans scrawled over them in big block capitals, either in support of the first indigenous president Evo Morales, or for or against the new constitution which the MAS (Movement Towards Socialism) government has been given the task to create. The villages and towns of the Altiplano being indigenous, the messages were all 'EVO SI' or 'CONSTITUCION NUEVO-SI'.

Eventually the isolated towns became more and more frequent and impressive snow-capped mountains emerged to our right. And then, as the guide book and any travel literature written about La Paz descibes the amazing view of the city was revealed, with its impossible sprawl of buildings spilling down into the valley surrounded by hills overlooked by the mighty, snow capped Mt Illimani which towers at 6402 metres.

After a wonder around in the evening we spent the night in a lovely freezing dive of a hotel, with the mandatory ice cold shower to get us started in the morning, before catching a minibus to Tiwanaku. The mini buses are basically the little Nissan people carriers that are ubiquitos in South America and carry you anywhere around the town or city for a set price of about 20p and stop anywhere you wave them down.

We arrived in the late afternoon, and it was soon apparent that Solstice was a big event. The little streets of the village, which is close to the ruins, were lined with makeshift stalls selling hot food and drinks, the usual selection of brightly coloured hats, gloves and ponchos, and the occasional llama feotus. We'd been told that it would get cold, but as the sun made it's farewell we were content in the knowledge that we'd come prepared with extra socks, trousers, jumpers, hats and gloves.

The main square had been transformed into a festival with a decent sized stage set up complete with lights speaker stacks. Unfortunately, the whole place was plastered with the advertisements of the corporations who had sponsered the event - apparently this was the first year that solstice had gone corporate, and there had been a big push to make this year's sacred ritual celebration into some kind of mini Glastonbury.

We had a good night though. The first few groups on stage were traditional Aymara music, with about 15 people on stage in traditional dress with a variety of drums, crazy horns and panpipes. It wasn't long before I joined in with the big group of Bolivians dancing in front of us, all holding hands in a circle walking round in one direction and then 'Oy!', and then walk around in the other direction! It was good fun, and they all seemed happy and amused to have a few gringos get in on the act.
As the night went on, the temperature dropped and one local guy who had befriended us for the evening told me it would get as low as -15 degrees! Our multiple layers soon seemed inadequate.

Luckily, we had the power of the coca leaf to sustain us. The coca plant is an important part of indigenous culture in much of South America. The Aymara have grown and chewed coca leaves for centuries, and used its leaves in traditional medicine as well as in ritual offerings to the earth goddess Pachamamma and the sun god Inti. The leaves are very nourishing; rich in vitamins, protein and calcium and are used as a mild stimulant to overcome hunger, fatigue and thirst. Its also effective against the effects of altitude sickness. The active ingredient is the cocaine alkaloid, which of course is what is used to produce the drug cocaine. But the levels present in the leaves are insufficient to cause the effects and addiction associated with the drug cocaine. Various studies have shown that chewing or taking the leaf as a tea has only beneficial effects. The leaf here has the same place in Andean life as coffee in European life. It is used as a flavouring for Coca Cola, hence the name. Never the less, this leaf has been the source of much controversey since the US launched its 'war on drugs' back in the 80's. Mass US-backed erradication programmes have left thousands of Bolivia's poorest without work, and have played an important role in the rise in anti-American sentiment which eventually lead to the landslide election of Evo Morales in 2005 (he himself had been a 'cocalero' and an important leader of coca growing union which was part of a powerful movement of coca growers' unions, consisting of campesinos who are resisting the efforts of the erradication efforts). Despite the UN 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, which lists the leaf alongside cocaine and heroin, and the ongoing demonisation of the plant and its growers, the US embassy promotes the consumption of coca tea to its citizens to minimize the impacts of altitude sickness!


At 5am, everyone gathered at the entrance to the ruins to que to enter. By this point we were pretty damn shattered and cold. We eventually got in, and gathered around the main part of the ruins - the gateway of the sun. Here, the Aymara shamens, wearing traditional multicoloured hats and garments performed various sacrifices to the pachamamma, including the burning of a gift of coca leaves, insense, copal and a llama pheotus. Apparantly, they also performed a 'wilacncha' or blood sacrifice where a llama was killed and it's blood (among the most important type of animal blood the Incas offered to the forces of the earth, mountain peaks and sky). Somehow, we seemed to miss this-probably due to the sheer volume of people between us and the alter. To our right thousands were gathered underneath a huge Wiphala flag - the colourful rainbow chequered flag that represents the indigenous people of the Andes.

As the sun began to rise above the horizon, the 40, 000 people present (made up mainly of Aymara and Quecha peoples, with a scattering of Europeans) lifted their palms to the sky to recieve the energy of the sun and welcome the new year and beginning of the new agricultural cycle.


It was a nice moment, although by that point it was tainted by the fact that we were so unbearably cold - we just wanted the sun high in the sky so we could be revived back to warm blooded mammal status. The whole night had been very interesting, but we both felt that it might have been a more authentic affair if we'd experienced it a few years ago, before the corporate tentacles had taken hold.

There were more rituals and dances planned throughout the day, but by this point we-d taken our fill, and were ready for the minibus back to the capital. Colette would take the bus back to Cochabamba, whereas I-d planned a little trip to a town called Soratafor a few days of walking, reading and relaxing in the hills.