Public Holidays And Festivals

Travelling through South America entails negotiating a variety of public holidays that change from country to country. The essential ones are listed in the “Opening hours and public holidays” section of each chapter, but bear in mind that, particularly in more remote areas, some towns and villages celebrate saints’ days and other local holidays that shut down businesses and make travel difficult. Check with local tourist information offices (where they exist) for more details. South Americans are not known to shy away from an excuse to celebrate, and we have included the finer festivals in the relevant chapters Every country in Latin America has some form of carnival (known in Spanish and Portuguese as Carnaval); the exact time varies, but the official celebrations usually take place on the days before Ash Wednesday and Lent, with the months and weeks beforehand almost as lively as excitement fills the air. There are national variations

of course: in Ecuador, for instance, the festivities are most visibly represented by the water fights taking place everywhere in the country. There are a couple of locations where Carnaval has become famous internationally such as Oruro in Bolivia and Encarnación in Paraguay. The most famous Carnaval of all, however, takes place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. This variegated orgy lasts for weeks before and after the “official” Carnaval time and is an extravagant, heady mix of dance, sweat, drink, laughter and colour.