Quien lo Vive, es Quien lo Goza: Carnaval de Barranquilla

I couldn't have said it better myself Barranquilla.  Translated as "Who lives it, is who enjoys it," this serves as the slogan mantra for Carnaval de Barranquilla and seems to fit just about perfectly.  Every year Barranquilla hosts one of the world's oldest and largest celebrations to kick off the Lenten season, starting four days before Ash Wednesday.  We got lucky this year since because 1. we had a three day weekend the same time as carnaval and 2. we are friends with Kristin & Kelsi.  While I had absolutely no idea that Barranquilla had a very large and very popular carnival every year, Kelsi & Kristin have been trying to go for the last two years that they have been in Colombia.  Learning from past experience, they got on top of things in September with booking flights and hotel and were gracious enough to invite everyone else to join in the fun; we ended up having a group of 10 in total. 

 

Colorful and fun shoes I wanted to buy.
Unfortunately 8 is not a common size.

After what seemed to be an endless day of teaching, we flew out from Cali at 7pm on Thursday and spent our first night walking around close to our hotel before calling it a night.  Friday called for some very necessary poolside time and reading before we made our way out in search of some costume wear for the parade on Saturday.  There was plenty to choose from with so many traditional parade costumes, like the Marimonda: a long nosed, floppy earred, bright vest and suspender wearing character.  This is typically the most popular since it is unique to Barranquilla.  There was street after street of costumes, it was a bit overwhelming.  In the end, most of us decided on crazy neon shirts cut and retied so be extra obnoxious.  Needless to say, this was a great addition to my hot pink shorts I was sure to pack.

Traditional carnaval costumes turned into purses!



Jeep decked out as a Marimonda

Friday night after dinner we found ourselves a cumbia (pronounced (kūm'bē-ə not kum-ba-ya as my brain seems to always revert to.  Embarrassing.) concert in a very large open field; yeah, I judged it too when I first realized I was standing in a big open field, but it was actually a lot of fun.  We eventually made it to the very front near the stage, which I thought would be a nightmare, but as it turns out, Colombians are pretty tranquilo; there was no pushing or fighting for space, everyone was simply there to live it, enjoy it and have a good time.  The cumbia music was practically non-stop the entire night; the shrill sound of the flute takes some getting used to, but the music is really quite beautiful and one can't help but move to the rhythmic beats.  Here is a clip of some of the music, not the best quality, but its all I have to offer.

When Saturday morning rolled around, it was time to prep for the big parade, the Batalla de las Flores (Battle of the Flowers).  After breakfast, we gathered our things and eventually the girls left without the boys as they had things to attend to.  Later we learned they had made shirts with their picture on them and couldn't pick them up until 11.  After about a 15-20 minute walk we made it to the line to go through security into the parade area.  After waiting and walking in the sun, I got a little sass when some women tried to cut us in line somethings along the lines of "Hay una fila.  El fin es por alla" (dramatic point).  As you can imagine that got little reaction and then I decided to give up on being frustrated, which is good considering how much more difficult getting to our mini-palco seats would be. 

Although the carnaval is a massive event that practically shuts the entire city down, it was difficult to find anyone who could actually tell us where our seats were located, since obviously the cross streets on the tickets were inaccurate.  Of course.  After wandering down countless crowded streets I selflessly offered to the group "I have no problem if we start telling people I can't walk and we need to get to our seats ASAP".  This is because I was sporting a lovely hinged knee brace due to a very special fall during my volcano hike which may have left me with a torn MCL.  I digress.  So we started telling police officers a parade people I couldn't walk and they had to take us to our seats NOW.  Didn't really work.  Eventually we did find a very large, very helpful military man, who delegated to a significantly smaller badged security officer who escorted us to our seats.  This resulted in a gringa parade for all those already in their seats as we walked the parade route to minipalcos 46 & 47.  Por fin.  And then about 10 minutes later the boys joined, who ALSO had to have an escort because no one could tell them how to get to the seats either.  Go figure. 

Once the parade started, nothing else mattered; it was full of entertaining dances and music, extravagant costumes with absolutely gorgeous colors and patterns.  Not to mention that all of this went on for five hours.   Marathon parade.  I could continue my attempts at describing the event, but I think pictures do a better job in this case.

The sanitation men of Barranquilla, one of the best performances!

What a costume!

Creepy/Crazy/Cool

Two of the more traditional Carnaval costumes

Lots of people dressed as animals and/or warriors

Plenty of extravagant floats as well.

After we lost some friends to the parade (not casualties, they jumped in) we made our way back to the hotel and then found a sushi/pizza restaurant.  I'm sorry, I meant heaven.  My too favorite foods in one convenient location?  I think I love you Barranquilla.  After cleaning up, some of use headed to a a street party, but I didn't last long.  The day had taken its toll and I was definitely ready for some sleep.  Sunday we had an afternoon flight and therefore would miss the parades and activities for the day, so we spent the morning doing more street browsing and shopping.  I left Barranquilla with a new Wayuu handcrafted mochila, three art pieces for our apartment, a beaded necklace, a woven compact mirror turned earring holder, some sunglasses and of course my fancy carnaval t-shirt and bow. 

Typical artisan stand

Of course a great weekend can never just be great, we ended up with a 2 hour delayed flight in Barranquilla that led to us missing our connecting flight in Bogota by about 2 minutes, which meant we didn't get home until 1 am Sunday night, and had to teach the next morning.  Woof.  Regardless, it was a great weekend and there is definitely talk of going back next year.