San Juan Festival in Bolivia

Every year in Bolivia the night of San Juan is celebrated. According to historians, this festival has its origin in the pagan Celtic part of Europe, which celebrated the arrival of summer. When Europe was evangelized by the Catholic religion, this pagan festival was transformed into Saint John. In the Andes, the Incas already celebrated the night of June 23 and 24. That celebration was called the Inti Raymi which means in Castilian the "festival of the sun". With the arrival of the Spanish, it continued to be celebrated tonight, but in honor of the Catholic saint San Juan.

Traditionally, family bonfires were held in which furniture and old wooden things that were gathered throughout the previous year were burned, with the symbol of getting rid of the old to make way for the new. Any object that represented a bad memory could be added to the campfire, and the bad events of the previous twelve months were thus exorcised. Potatoes were heated on the fire, which were then offered to the attendees in order to ensure them enough food throughout the year. The next day, in the ashes of the burned things, one could read the luck for the coming year. People stayed up all night around the fire, dancing and jumping on top of it, while the children launched fireworks.

Today you can no longer make bonfires because it damages the environment and the health of the population, since in the past the cities were filled with smoke on the days following Saint John. Only in some towns is the tradition of San Juan continued, making bonfires and embers where people pass over them for fun and jump into the bonfires.

Currently in Bolivia San Juan is celebrated no longer with bonfires but with a barbecue, among friends and families. They eat hot-dogs and fritters and drink typical hot drinks such as apí (sweet and hot drink based on white or red corn) or sucumbé (grape brandy with hot 3 milks and cinnamon) since it is the coldest night of the year in the southern hemisphere. Nowadays, fortunes are read in a glass in which an egg and beer are poured, or in molten tin, on the morning of June 24.

Some beliefs have been created throughout the celebrations of San Juan, such as the fact that if one gets up early on the night of San Juan, he will not sleep all year. It is also said that if you burn something that you want to forget, you will have well-being all year round. At last, single men and women, on the morning of June 24, look out the window of their house and see the love of their life pass by.