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Published: February 10th 2008
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Rey Momo
These are the reincarnations of the King Momo who is the king of carnival. The mustaches are key. Adam K. took this pic. There is talk that I am the great white Rumbero* of which the prophecy of King Momo of 1888 spoke. Sorry it took almost a week to finish the Carnaval blog, struggling is the word that most handily comes to mind. Quien lo vive es quien que lo goza! A few tales that are profoundly Carnival. Joe (Minnesota gringo) is peeing on the wall of the most expensive hotel in the city taking a break from the street party that is gathering outside and listening to band. You could see the band, hear them perfectly, and all of the poor folks in the street were having more fun and most were closer to the stage than the folks who paid 100 American (half the monthly minimum wage) to get in. While he is peeing on said upscale hotel he sees a policeman moving towards him and immediately assumes he’s gonna have to pay a small fee, directly to the policeman of course, but instead the cop stops and pees next to him. Or there’s the little 7 or 8 year old who said to his mother at 5:30 in the morning “mommy I’m tired, can we go home?” “No, keep dancing.”
Baranoa Garabato
Shows how colorful Carnival is. Picture courtesy of Mr. Chris Davis since I seem to have lost (stolen) mine. So we all kept dancing. Carnival. Friday night is a Cumbia circle. Cumbia is a slow mock courtship dance with broad dresses (or imitation of said dress) and the man with one hand behind his back and the other slowly waving his hat in front of her. It sounds weird but it’s fun. It has guinean African roots and was long considered a vulgar lower class dance. We all left at like 3, early night, big day ahead. Wake up at 8, the kind Barranquillero teachers who are hosting the visiting expats are cooking breakfast for all of us. Three liters of booze and some breakfast burritos later we are ready for the Batalla de Flores (Battle of Flowers), the first parade of the weekend which features a lot of commercialization these days, floats with scantily clad women representing various products, the Aguila beer girls, the Old Parr Whiskey girls, etc. The queen of Colombia and of the Carnival are all present. We rolled like 20 deep, sat in a poorly shaded palco (bleacher) and drank spirits we purchased from a nine-year old kid. They outlawed the spray foam this year because it is messy, doesn’t have much to do
Los negritos
I love this picture taken by Chris Davis. I heard some racially insensitive gringos dressed up similarly for school on Friday. with the spirit of Carnival, and of course due to its extreme flammability and tendency to burn people’s faces off who get sprayed when they happen to have a cigarette in their mouth. We leave the parade late because we are on the far side of the street and we can’t cross during the parade. Afterwards we ate McDonalds so I can remember the magical taste of McNuggets**, freedom and democracy. We go home, shower (some of us showered, Chris the gringo wiseman of Carnival wore the same shirt all 5 days). That night half went to Beerfest, a big concert and half went to a salsa club. The cool half went to the salsa club afterwards. I gave a girl a fake phone number for the first time in my life and am not feeling too good about it. Went home at about 530, found a street party danced on the street corner for a while, enjoyed it, decided to return the following night to said street corner. The next day a large portion of our crew left, all the Bucaramanga and Cartegena gringos had to be back at work. One smooth gringo decided to pull an all nighter
Baranoa Gigantes
This is actually a pre carnival event, trying to give you the feel of the color and madness of it all. Again thanks be to Chris Davis. before his 14 hour bus ride home, but then got lost for 2 and a half hours walking the 3 blocks between apartments. How? I don’t know, but it was hilarious. We got up at 9 the next day (Sunday), breakfast and back at the parade. This parade was lamer, we did not all bring our A game, it was hot, we left a little earlier by running across the street during the parade which is punishable by 3 years in a Turkish prison. Don’t ask me why they’d ship us to Turkey. We took a break to watch the awesome SuperBowl. I think the Onion (satirical newspaper) summed it up best with the headline ‘Patriots’ Season Perfect for Rest of the Nation.’ I haven’t had that much fun watching the SuperBowl in my life. I watched it amidst a nice crew of expat gringos from all over the country united only by our desire to root for a team from New York of all places. That night we returned to the street corner party, several saw the sun come up. Monday is a day of rest, at least until one in the afternoon or so when they have the
festival de Orquistas (Orchestra Festival), the annual battle of the bands to see who rocks the most flip-flops off carnival goers. We loaded up on more sushi than I’ve ever eaten in my life and we went to the concert. The police kicked us out of the 3 hour line when we arrived because the 3 people holding a place in line aren’t allowed to let 15 crackers in front of them I guess. So we forwent the 3 hour wait and paid someone 10 grand ($5) to let us skip the line. I found that if you dance with the lady collecting quarters to use the restroom she lets you pee for free. I also discovered that spending a day dancing is not something that seems fun or very heterosexual to the common gringo but I believe it is necessary for survival at Carnival because if you weren’t sweating off the effects of the booze I do believe you might die. The festival was a marathon of a day ending at 3 but we still managed to go to an all-night salsa club. Tuesday is the most difficult day to get going by far, if the end weren’t so
near no one would. We drag ourselves to the 5th day for the death of Joselito who is the Carnival common man, who dies of drink and womanizing. This is best day of the parade but it is hard to notice. At six Adam and I left to come back to work. I’ll stop and report about something else soon, hope you are all well.
Movie of the month: Cloverfield is amazing, the best monster movie ever.
Music of the month: La Puya Loca - Kind of the Carnival theme for me.
Book of the month: Look Me in the Eye - John Elder Robison. I think I may have Aspergers.
Heart,
Tyrone
*Someone who participates in a Rumba, or colloquially translated, a rock star.
**I can’t think of McNuggets without thinking of Tom’s face and how happy he was the day we got the 50 nugget bucket.
"What the hell is with that last name, anyway?" Bush said. "Ahmadinejad? Ahmendinifragelisticexpialidocious? I can't even pronounce it, let alone write it on a top-secret Black Ops memo." - George Bush in the Onion’s Friar’s Roast of Iranian President
Travel, at its best, is a process of
Mr. T and Hannibal
They, much like myself, do love the A-Team here. continually conquering disbelief. - Micheal Palin
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