Con la Fuerza del Sol, or With the Strength of the Sun in English, is one of the largest carnivals of South America and year after year gathers over 100 thousand spectators with its troupes and traditional dances from Bolivia, Peru and Chile.

 

Each year, during the summer season, at the end of January and beginning of February, the main streets of the city of Arica are filled with color, dances and music that for days and nights bring this city to life.

 

 

A growing number of brotherhoods (59 until the year 2014), that surpass 100 dancers each, express several Andean rhythms brought all the way from Bolivia.

 

Local rhythms presented by communities from the interior of the Arica and Parinacota Region and Afro-American rhythms in charge of Afro-descending communities, have contributed to the multiculturalism of this fiesta. Each brotherhood chooses a Ñusta, whose denomination comes from the Quechua language with which the Incas designated to princesses.

 

 

Caporales, Morenadas, Tinkus, Tobas, Tarqueadas, Saya, Sampoñada, WacaWaca, Suri Sicuris, Diablada and Tumba are the main dances exposed in the “Con la Fuerza del Sol” carnival, all representatives of the pre-Hispanic and colonial history of Latin America, combined with all the different cultures, especially in the Arica and Parinacota Region due to its border limits with both Peru and Bolivia.