Day 24 - July 5 - Wedding celebration in Testa

On the previous day, we had learned that everyone in the area had gone to the next village for a wedding celebration of a woman who would be moving down the valley to live with her new husband. The tradition is that people from the groom's village come, celebrate all night with the bride's villagers, and then lead the bride and her family on horses to the actual ceremony at her new home. It is common, in fact, for the two to have already been living together for several years after a quiet ceremony to make sure everything was okay before having the big celebration.






By the time we arrived around 11am, everyone had been drinking chang, the local rice liquor, for most of the night. Each villager presented a kata (ceremonial scarf) to the bride, who was sobbing under the weight of saying goodbye to the people she had grown up with. Dancers from the groom's village moved slowly to the beats of drums. Everyone was in traditional dress.

After about two hours, the bride collected herself enough to say farewell to her friends and began walking to the other side of the village, where the horses were waiting. Her family served a final meal of gruel mixed from a dozen pots brought by different families, then she and her closest family mounted their horses and rode off.


For the rest of the day on the trail, we were passed by many people returning to their villages in the surrounding area.