Advertisement
Travel Day
Heading for BarranquillaFriday 28
th February (Odyssey Day 112)
A lazy start again today as we didn’t leave until 1000. It will be a short day today so why not enjoy the beach for a little longer? Hannah and I had our last go at the slack line and after so much practice, we did both manage to get all the way across. I obviously had severe delusions about my balance before this!
We then headed off toward the city of Barranquilla and as we arrived on the outskirts of town and drove through a few slums, everyone was getting worried about spending Carnival here. As it turned out, we drove through the bad part of town and arrived in quite a nice and clean area where our hotel was. The majority of the group are in the Golden House Hotel while four of the guys are in another hotel a few blocks away.
Joanna met up with us again in Barranquilla, after her lost city trek. It was good to see her photos from the past week, and she had clearly enjoyed
Barranquilla
Getting dressed up for Carnival herself as much as we had at the beach.
I’m sharing a room here with Hannah and Joanna and the rooms are nice, with hot water and everything. We made arrangements for tickets for day one of the parade in the palco’s. These are various stands along the parade route. It was COP$180,000 for the ticket, which is possibly the most expensive thing I have bought in Colombia.
Saturday 1
st March (Odyssey Day 113)
As it turned out, the COP$180,000 ticket for day one of the parade was actually a ticket for all three days of the parade. So we can all spend more than one day in the palco if we want. Bonus.
Somehow Hannah managed to convince me to wear my Christmas present to day one of Carnival. I blame Hannah for twisting my arm, but I did finally wear my Secret Santa gift – a bright pink shirt. It was a slightly traumatic experience for me, but I shall recover I’m sure.
Barranquilla
The Carnival group - very colourful Day one of the parade was met with excitement as everyone got ready and hopped into some taxis to get to the general area and then walked through. Ellie was in a hurry to get to the stands but Danielle, Wayne and I were more than happy to walk slowly and enjoy seeing all the decorations on the streets and local houses. They obviously really get into the spirit of things here.
Wayne bought foam but we couldn’t take it through the police checkpoint. Some local kids were hanging around the area and managed to score another tin…
Keeping a hold of you ticket is of course important. Unfortunately, in the very brief time it took me to put my camera away, someone managed to steal my ticket from my bag. Talk about fast work. It is the first time I have had something stolen from me this trip and the pure frustration was monumental. It was easy enough to go buy a replacement from the guys out front hocking tickets but everyone kept joking that I probably just ended up buying
my own ticket back. It was cheaper this time around, but so very annoying. I decided I wouldn’t let it upset me but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t angry for a while. At least it was just a ticket though and it was a wakeup call that I was getting a bit lax with my personal security.
You couldn’t take alcohol into the stands without paying off the guards, so I wasn’t the only one who stood outside for a little bit longer to avoid having to throw away a bottle of something. There was of course beer on sale in the palco stands, along with soft drink, water, snacks and tins of foam.
Our group went through a lot of foam!! It was myself, Ellie, Johnny, Mike, Hannah, Kelly, Maddie, Lou, Glen, Donna, Wayne, and Danielle in our area of the stand and I can tell you it got messy! So much fun though. Admittedly we had more fun messing around in the stands than watching the parade, but that was also very cool.
Once it was over,
we all decided to walk back to the hotel. In the end, after about half an hour of walking, Lou, Ellie and I decided to catch a taxi back as we had had enough. Unfortunately our driver got a little lost and when we finally arrived, it was to find the others had beaten us back. Turns out we had only been a few streets over when we got in the cab. Oh well, we shall know better for next time.
We went out to dinner at a place fairly near the hotel. Unfortunately they tried to cheat us out of some money by claiming we hadn’t paid right after I paid them. Crazy people, we ended up just having to walk out and warning the rest of the group not to eat there. Hannah may not have been the only one who was just a bit drunk by this point, and getting everyone away was a lesson in chaos…
Sunday 2nd March (Odyssey Day 114)
Today was a rest day for me. I decided
Barranquilla Carnival Day 1
A little bit of chaos in the group to skip the parade and go do some shopping instead. At least I did more than Hannah who was quite worse for wear and spent the entire day in bed.
The city was really busy and there were people everywhere. Carnival is a really big deal here and it shows all over the place. Decorations everywhere and most people dress up in colourful clothes. There is no mistaking that it is Carnival time. I don’t know a lot about the origins of the celebrations, but the dates of Carnival are determined by the dates of Lent. It is quite late this year, as is Easter.
Monday 3
rd March (Odyssey Day 115)
Day three of parade was to be our last day in Barranquilla. It was a small group of us heading for the palcos this time. Danielle, Wayne, Glen, Donna, Hannah, Mike and myself walked to the stands but stopped along the way for some chicken for lunch.
They provide throw away plastic gloves to keep your hands
Barranquilla Carnival Day 1
The most important thing to remember when being foamed? Protect the beer clean while eating the chicken – brilliant! Though it does feel a little strange.
Once we staked out an area in the stands to watch the parade from, we somehow managed to get into a foam war with some of the kids in the family groups sitting near us – obviously we were the crazy gringos who didn’t mind getting foamed. I think they had an unfair advantage though as there was a baby with one of the groups and none of us wanted to risk squirting foam that way – something said baby’s elder sister took shameless advantage of. I’m completely unsure if we should feel bad about being out-foamed by a few young children or not.
On the way back we stopped to have a couple of beers and food though I didn’t have anything more than chips. It was nice to sit and watch as people make their way home from the parade or out to dinner, still buzzing from the excitement of carnival.
We also made a stop at the chicken place again – this
Barranquilla Carnival Day 1
Just a little foam for Johnny time opting for pollo asada (BBQ chicken) instead of the crumbed pieces. It was delicious. And I’m still quite tickled by the gloves they provide us…
Advertisement
Tot: 0.061s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 8; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0258s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
