Carnaval!

February 17-20 was Carnaval in Barranquilla! Holy crap. Next to Rio de Janero, Barranqilla hosts the world’s second largest carnival. I stayed with my previous host-family, and it was great to be back on my old street again playing dominoes, drinking beers, dancing with all the neighbors, and generally spending time with my family. Carolina, my old host mom, makes and sells carnival gear from shirts to jewelry, head bands and scarfs and decked me out with some of all of the above.

                Saturday started out with the main parade, which included the more typical floats, sexy dancers, detailed and vibrant costumes, and traditional dances. There were also some unexpected costume appearances, such as Hitler, Osama bin Laden, George W. Bush, FARC, transvestites galore, KKK, and hundreds of black-faced men and women. “Los Negritos” are people who literally paint their bodies and faces black, growl like monkeys and apes, and dance with their tounges out… as long as you are dancing, in costume AND in Colombia, evidently anything goes. Flour and foam were thrown and sprayed all over everyone.

 

               

                That night three friends and I watched J. Alvarez and Marc Anthony preform from 10 feet away. We met a guy who works for Marc Anthony and our free tickets he gave us turned out to be front row (not even row—this was too classy, we had front couches), surrounded by the wealthiest of Barranquilla (and may I add the most silicone I’ve ever seen—every woman had fake boobs and butt), and allowed us to be total posers (didn’t know a single song of Marc’s). Furthermore, after the show we got to go back stage and ate a bunch of his leftover pizza. 

                Saturday some friends and I met my family (aka about 30 members) at another parade and watched procession after procession of amazing dancers.

                The night ended with a Cumbia concert and roughly eight hours of dancing.

I was going to come back to Cartagena on Tuesday, but come Monday morning it was evident that Colombian party stamina is just not something that my American roots have taught me. How do they do it?!