The strangest festival in this journal, the Day of the Dead is a syncretism between an ancient local festival honoring the dead and the Christian day of All Saints. The main activities are located in the General Cemetery, a main landmark that is readily accessible.

According to old local traditions, when a person dies, his soul (nuna) goes to the Underworld (Urkhu Pacha); originally, the locals used to take their dead out of their graves on the three years following their death and share a day with their bones.

According to the Bolivian folklore, in the Underworld everything goes backwards and old people slowly turn young again. At the end of the dry season the dead return for a day to get supplies for the next year. On November the first, Bolivian families begin to prepare a small feast to their dead that supposedly would arrive to the cemetery the next day.

The gruesome part of the festival is that in the past the dead used to be dug out of their graves; nowadays only the skulls are used – usually they are stored within the people’s homes during the year and brought to the cemetery especially for the occasion. Then, they are dressed up with various garments and offered foods, drinks and cigarettes. Obviously lacking a nose, the skulls are affectionately called "ñatitas" (short nosed). If a skull is not available, a family’s member dresses up as the dead and enacts him during the day, talking with the family about the last year and giving counseling.

The offering is arranged on a cloth covering a table called (mastak'u). The cloth is white if the dead were a kid or a black one if he was an adult. Next to the skull or to the dead photograph, candles, food, candies shaped as animals, dried fruits, pastries, bread shaped as kids and symbolizing sacrificed children, coca leaves, chicha (corn beer), and cigarettes are placed in generous quantities. Flowers are put over the tomb. However, in La Paz most dead are kept in niches for a few years and then taken away from the cemetery thus most families bring their skulls with them.

Sitting around the offerings table the family receives guests during the whole night and musical groups play relevant themes. Next day, by noon, a farewell ceremony accompanied by an abundant meal is performed.

La Paz celebrates since 1939 the "Festividad Del Señor Del Gran Poder" (Festival of the Lord of the Great Power). The festivity is centered on a cult to an image of Jesus anonymously painted in the 17th century. Much later, in 1842, a young lady called Genoveva Carrión joined a Catholic monastery (Monasterio de la Purísima Concepción) and gave the picture to it. In 1904, the monastery was reduced in size and the picture began wandering around. In 1932, a chapel aimed to keep it was constructed and the local bishop asked of two painters to erase the faces on Jesus’ sides. After erasing the two faces, one of the painters wanted to improve Jesus’ eyes, but the story says He moved his eyes away. In 1939, the chapel was declared a church, "Iglesia Parroquial del Gran Poder," and a new festival was added to La Paz repertoire.

With dancing groups arriving from the whole province, the festival reminds very much of the Bolivian Carnival; however, the dances variety is wider and accurately shows the human richness of the province. The climate in late May or early June, when the festival takes place, is substantially different than during Carnival; the temperatures drop close to the freezing point and it is so dry that most metallic surfaces are loaded with static electricity. Worsening the situation, Bolivian structures are not connected to earth.

Much of the folklore represented in this festival originates in the black slaves brought from Africa to work in the silver mines of Potosi. The few survivors settled down in the Yungas, the northern part of the province on the limit with the Amazonian Basin, where is hotter and lower than in La Paz City.

"La Morenada" music and dance has a distinctive African rhytm and includes the presence of a Black King, especially elected for the event; nowadays, indigenous Aymaras usually cast all the roles of the elaborate dance. Masks with huge, bulging eyes represent the slaves, which were unaccustomed to the altitude and unable to work in the mines for prolonged periods of time. Other roles include "María Antonieta," a woman slave that rebelled against her European owner using her voluptuousness to seduce the "Caporal." The last was a special slave in charge of the slaves; they were famous for their violence. "Caporales" is the name of a related dance that puts emphasis on the role of these slave-bosses. They are enacted with heavy dresses and whips to represent their power; the dresses are so heavy – looking like a wedding-cake - that the dancers are hardly able to move and resemble trees moving in the wind. "La Saya" is a percussive music based on drums and the "reje reje," a bamboo stick with incisions that reminds a ratchet.

The best places to watch the festival are El Prado – the city’s main avenue – and the General Cemetery area; however, the groups move between these two areas along the main roads.

The Alasitas are miniatures sold in Bolivian markets, especially in La Paz, beginning at January 24th. There is no need to rush since the festival runs well into the Carnival season. The festival name is related to an Aymara word meaning "buy me," and it celebrates Ekeko, the abundance and home idol, to whom the miniatures are given as a gift. The locals believe he will reciprocate with similar gifts in the real world. Typical of Catholic syncretism, the festival was united with the celebration of the La Paz Virgin and the liberation of the city from Tupak Katari’s siege.

In La Paz, Alasitas is celebrated at La Paz Municipal Park; to reach it from the obelisk in downtown advance through Camacho Avenue until the site is reached. The Municipal Park paths and entrances fill up with stalls which are well-covered with plastic sheets, a proven protection against water-filled balloons. People wearing plastic ponchos check out the miniatures. The festival gives free hand to people’s creativity; tiny – but otherwise real – newspapers are specially issued for the occasion by the regular publishers. Stalls marked as "Bank of Bolivia" sell miniature notes of euros and dollars; a thousand fake dollars can be purchased for a dime. Houses and cars exist in a myriad of designs and special trays – a take-away offering to the gods – are aggressively advertised. Such a festival cannot exist without food stalls fueling the visiting hordes; but even those have been adapted for the occasion and most of them sell miniatures of popular Bolivian pastries by the dozen. As in any Bolivian festival, "challas" are seen everywhere; the blessing of (and sharing with) the earth takes the strange form of spilling some beer of every glass on the ground.

The legend behind the festival tells that many centuries ago, a man called Ekeko lived in the Andean Plateau; he was short, humble and generous. His arrival at any village brought harmony and happiness. The Apu Qullana Qullo (Aymara for Sacred Father God) gave him special gifts and he was able to change nature itself. However, the happiness was over once the Awka (Devil) arrived; the devil in Bolivia is depicted as a young man having white skin and blue eyes. The devil ruined whatever Ekeko built, and the last was forced to run away. One day, the Awka and Ekeko arrived at the same village. To prevent further destruction, Ekeko gave himself to Awka. He was tortured and dismembered and his body parts were buried in different parts of the High Plateau to avoid his reincarnation. Legend says that his body will be recreated at the Winyay Marca (the Divine City) and would announce the emancipation of the Aymara people. The resemblance of the second part of the legend to historical events and figures is not casual; encasing history into festivals and legends is a favorite way to preserve the past among the locals.

The first time I arrived to La Paz it was just a few days before the Carnival. I was not aware of that until then; it was serendipity at its best: travel around until something worthwhile appears. As soon as I dropped my luggage, I was told that the cities of Oruro and La Paz offer the best versions of the Carnival in the whole country and I ran to take my first look at the event.

Unplanned again, this year I found myself again in La Paz during the occasion. Anyone familiar with the surroundings would wonder before seeing it how such an event would look like. Four kilometers above the Pacific Ocean, the Andean Plateau at February is a harsh place. Whenever it is not raining, the sun burns and the shadows freeze. Oxygen is a rare luxury. The local culture is conservative and shy; decent women seldom expose more than their faces and hands. What kind of Carnival can such conditions create?

Yet, it is considered on of the main events in the Bolivian calendar. The telling signs begin appearing one by one weeks before the event. In the crowded streets, kids armed with water guns and water-filled balloons attack pedestrians and cars without discrimination. Traditional masks decorate public places. Little groups practicing their dances sporadically block main streets. Beer and urine foul the air. However, heavily organized in unions, Bolivians treat the event in an organized fashion that if implemented into their regular life would catapult this poor country into one of the richest.

Each dancing group usually represents a given group of workers; all of them enact the same dances: "Diabladas" (Devilish) or "Morenadas" (Darkish). The "Diablada" is part of a Devil’s cult, while the Morenada tells the story of the black slaves brought from Africa to work in the Potosi’s silver mines during the colonial era. The slaves’ masks have bulging eyes – a sophisticated way to show the difficulties caused by the altitude. In reality, most of them died within a few months of their arrival at the mines. Accompanying the men’s masks are heavy dresses, which allow the dancers only slow, pendulum-like moves. The women use peculiar customs: hats belonging to 19th century London, long-sleeved, colored blouses, high-heeled boots often reaching above the knees and skirts that seem to end before they begin. Rather low and plump, Carnival offers to the Bolivian women an opportunity to expose their thighs.

The music is monotonous and produces with noisy brass instruments; since all the groups perform the same dances, it is wise to reach a good watching place for a while and then to perform a strategic retreat into a good, isolated coffee shop.

In La Paz, the event is best seen at El Prado – the main avenue spanning the downtown center or at the vicinity of the General Cemetery – a main landmark in the city and a proper warning for those worshipping the "Diablada."