The Chiva Colombian Party Bus!

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In Colombia, if you walk into a souvenir store you will deffinitly see this for sale: a hand made minature version of a bus that is extremely colorfull usually with reds, yellows, and blues (like the Colombian flag) and on top of it features little tiny fruit baskets, chickens, and may or may not have a little person riding on the back. This is called a "Chiva". Chiva also means goat in spanish, but in this case we are talking about the Colombian party bus. Back in the day the chiva was used for local transportation and people used a ladder to climb up the bus and store their belongings for the ride. Today there are more modern city buses for transportation, so the Chiva is used less but can be rented for partys! You can even request that a band called a "papayera" be on board to play music during the ride.

On my last week in Armenia Colombia, my boyfriend Victor and his causins rented a chiva party bus and envited loads and loads of people to party with us! The chiva included a 3 person papayera band which played really loud folk music using drums and other instruments. All my life I had seen the little hand made chivas as decoration in people's houses, so to be riding on one was like a dream come true! The bus is spacious inside and the windows are more like doors so that you can easily hop in and out. There was a lot of Colombian aguardiente (liquor) brought on board so you could get your party on! We decided to nickname the chiva bus "el chiva del terror" because the head lights went out at one point and we were driving in complete darkness haha sounds scary huh? The stereo on the bus also came on and off serveral times by its self, probably from how old it was but everyone joked that the bus was haunted.

The bus made several stops that night, but the final stop was a large "farm" house that we also rented to continue the party all night. It had two stories and many rooms for people to sleep in. I cant even remember what time we all went to sleep because after all the dancing I eventually passed out in my room. The next day everyone was pretty much hungover and thankfully there was a huge pool at the house to relax in and enjoy the sunny beautiful day. I am so thankful for this authentic experience. If you are traveling to Colombia you must join a chiva party bus somehow and experience how locals party, you can only do this in Colombia 😊

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Photos

Chiva
This is what a chiva looks like!

Chiva and Papayera
Standing in front of the Chiva party bus and the papayera music band that played the whole ride.

Chiva Stops
The Chiva party bus made several stops, here people are getting off for a quick bus break.