One of the big reasons we stayed in Sucre for three weeks was because we were told about a big festival that would be happening on September 14th, the Festival of the Virgin of Guadalupe. It is one of the biggest festivals in the country and a must see if possible. But first, just to give us a taste of what was to come, we were told about the Chullitos Festival in Potosi. So on the day of the festival, Mareen and I took a bus to Potosi to join the party. Unfortunately for us, the two and a half hour bus ride turned out to be 5 hours and we only had a couple hours to sample the events in Potosi. However, the short time we spent was enough to convince us to stay for the big party in Sucre.
The festival in Sucre is actually a weekend-long street party. You have thousands of dancers dressed up in various costumes dancing and marching from one end of the city to the central square (they dance/march for about 8 hours). It starts on Friday evening with the youth parade and continues all day Saturday. The whole city pretty much shuts down for this event. People are drinking all day, dancing in the streets and eating good street food. When I say people are dancing, I mean they dance on the side, and if they feel like it, they jump in and join the parade for a short time. By the end of the night, the costumed dancers have trouble getting through the crowd as there are so many spontaneous dancers. This is a special day for Sucre, the dancers spend a lot of money on their costumes and practice for a long time. In the end, the entire crowd is pumped for the event, the dancers dance their socks off and everyone has a really good time.
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