Susi has developed Boli Belly, so I left her at home and took myself out for dinner. The Bolivians will claim any excuse for a march and today was the anniversary of losing their coast to Chile—a peculiar event to turn into a show. I sat myself on the balcony of the Irish bar overlooking the route and prepared for the jollity. Despite the booze ban, the Irish bar was joyously true to stereotype and happily served me beers, although I was in clear view of the cameras giving live TV coverage of the procession.
We started with a very jaunty marching band; there was no singing but I like to think the lyrics were “Bolivians never, ever, ever shall be crapped on by seagulls”. Next were some soldiers mounted on beautiful horses (certainly not seahorses), metrosexually clad in pink, yellow and green.
The baton twirling was superb, behind the twirler and band were representations of each of the armed forces. The air force had inflatable planes attached to the ends of their rifles, the army carried paper lanterns in the national colours and the navy sported little paper boats with candles in. The whole procession was refreshingly light on armaments but as a display of military might or even commemoration, it all seemed rather wussy and lacking in gravitas.
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