I think I am too old for Carnaval. The first night in Las Tablas was pretty wild ... we were staying with Caleb´s Peace Corps friend and there were about 20 people crashing there, all over the filthy linoleum floor. It was like a frat house. So the first night of Carnaval we headed down to the main square in town not knowing what to expect. There were meat vendors everywhere ... chorizo spiral cut on a stick for 50 cents, and kabobs with pork and onion and green pepper for $1.00. Cans of beer for $1, which everyone there was partaking of liberally. We got a good spot on the main street and waited for the parade to start. Finally, fireworks started going off, except they were launched from right in front of us, like no more than 20 feet away. Then a 5 minute long series of those firecrackers that just explode on the ground, and everyone cleared the street coughing and dodging flying debris. There are obviously no lawyers in Panama. Once the street was cleared, an extremely elaborate float came around carrying the carnaval queen (reina) looking miserable dancing in an insane feathered gown with lots of younger girls doing the same below her, followed by another float carrying a full band playing the same 4 measures of carnaval music over and over. Then from the other direction another set of floats came by carrying the queen from the other side of town and her band. People cheered for the queens and sang songs about Calle Abajo or Calle Arriba (the two competing sides) and one really drunk guy yelled up asking the queen for a kiss, and she heard and looked down and blew him one and everyone went nuts.
Once it was clear that this was all that was going to happen, we headed over towards the outdoor discoteca set up for the occasion. They had this huge stage set up with a catwalk and a massive facade behind, carved out of styrofoam. Anna and I were pretty exhausted, having made the mistahe of trying to keep up with the frat boys at the house drinking cervezas all day, so we camped out by the catwalk to have good seats for the coronation of the reina. We could hear the music from the discoteca and a DJ announcing over it. The DJ never let a complete song play without interupting it. They played the best of Bob Marley, in 20 second snippets, and the DJ SANG ALONG with it, except since the words were in English he obviously didnt know all of them. It was pretty hilarious. ´´I remember when we used to sing, in the gobahmon yod in LAS TABLAS!´´ FINALLY, after like an hour of half of waiting, the coronoation started. These ladies standing next to us pointed up to these small metal cylinders mounted all along the catwalk and warned us that they were going to shoot flames, so we were on edge the whole time. The cornonation went on forever and ever ... the mayor or some important man announced and the old queen gave her crown to the new queen and they introduced the queen´s court of like 30 girls all wearing these crazy cleopatra-esque gold costumes, and everyone walked down the catwalk looking terrified and wearing plastic smiles and praying to god that they didnt trip, and each one had to be practically carried up this precarious styrofoam stage because they could barely walk in their outfits. Each time the music crescendoed we ducked for cover thinking the flares were going to go off and the ladies cracked up at me. They finally did at the very end as the queen got her crown -- it was like huge sparklers pointing AT the audience, everyone running and ducking for cover and coughing from the smoke. Craziness!!
We set up our tent on the balcony at the frat house and slept outside, which was far superior to being inside, but still on the hard floor. The next morning we woke up so early, because there´s just no sleeping in a house like that, and all the guys immediately started in with the beer again. In the square, the daytime actividades were in full swing ... they lined up the square with tankers full of ice water and sprayed the crowd with fire hoses as the floats went by. Now when I say ¨floats¨ I don´t mean a PARADE ... it´s 2 floats, one with the queen and one with the band, and they just roll through the crowd slowly, in circles, for about an hour at a time. Also, every little kid and teenage boy has a high tech water gun, and if you´re a gringa girl you´re guaranteed to be soaked within minutes. It was fun, for about 2 hours. That night we went back to the outdoor discoteca and had to pay $6 to get in, which is a ton of money in Panama. They had Budweiser beer, which I never though I would be happy to see. We got there pretty early with a big group from the house and the "security" guys let us into the VIP area, on high scaffolds above the rest of the crowd, I think since we are American and therefore cool. They played all the same music as the night before, and NO ONE danced! It was so lame! The Panamanians just stood there, drinking and yelling to each other over the music. At first it was really fun, they did another awesome fireworks display right over our heads, and we were at a club, OUTSIDE, under amazing stars, which was very cool. They played "Mr. Jones" and all us gringos went nuts singing along and dancing. People stared and laughed. But it just kept getting more and more and more crowded. To get to the bathroom we had to hold hands and literally shove our way through the non-dancing crowd in lines. Finally it was just not fun any more and we got separated from everyone else and headed back to the house, which meant fighting our way through the crowd of people who were trying to get in. I was holding Caleb´s hand and he was dragging me through the people, and there was a curb but I didn´t see it until I had tripped and scraped my knee and lost my sandal in a puddle of alcohol and vomit and trash and god knows what else. yeah! carnaval! We got back to the frat house and had to sleep on the floor in our tent again, and it was just time to get the hell out of Las Tablas. Suposedly every day of Carnaval is different, but this just means different floats. Other than that, it´s the same water throwing all day, drinking all day, and standing in the discoteca listening to the same music all night. And eating meat on a stick.
So we got out of town by heading to Pedasi, a small town about 45 minutes drive from Las Tablas. It was SUBLIME. The country around there is very dry, completely deforested for pasture lands, and we passed many cattle fields and saw some real caballeros wearing the traditional Panama hats and riding horses through the fields. Pedasi itself is the nicest town we´ve seen ... it was perfectly clean, all the houses were very well kept with nice gardens, lots of white paint. We saw the Carnaval parade come by just as we arrived, and it was so cute and pleasant, just all the townspeople out following the floats and dancing and children squirting each other with water guns. The queen had a really cool outfit too, but not so completely over the top like in Las Tablas. So Anna & I arrived there and we were supposed to call some Peace Corps people who had also headed there, and they all walked past us just as were about to call. We piled into a taxi (literally, I think there were 15 people in the front and back of a pickup truck) and went to Playa Venao, which is an awesome surf beach. A bunch of people rented surfboards, I got a boogie board. This was our first Pacific beach, so it was totally different. The sand was very dark grayish, and so freaking hot in the sun that I actually got burns on the bottoms of my feet. But the water was very chilly and the waves were awesome and huge. I caught a few great ones on my board. I also got about a million tiny little jellyfish stings in the water, and one pretty significant one on my arm, and that got old. We went back into town with the group and had dinner, then went out on our own to another beach, Playa El Toro, to camp out. It was already dark when we arrived so we didn´t really see the beach, but the stars were spectacular. This man came over and held the flashlight for us and told us there was a family staying over on the other side of the beach and we could join them if we wanted. I was all tired and annoyed that he woulnd´t go away. Finally he did and we crashed immediately.
The morning: wow. I woke up to the see the sun rise, and we saw that the beach we were on was INCREDIBLE. Not really a swiming beach, but beautiful. There were huge lovely sea shells everywhere, and big craggy rocks in the water. As we were packing up to go, this white guy walks up carrying a massive fish and speaking Spanish to us. We were totally confused until the guy was like "OH, you´re American!"... turns out he is from New York and had been staying there with the man who helped us the night before, named Cabeza ... the New York guy (Peter) had actually taken Cabeza up on the offer to camp with him when he first arrived there, and Peter ended up staying there for 3 weeks. He took us over to this camp, and they had a sweet set up. They had a little kitchen and hammocks strung up and a table and they gave us coffee and water and patacones. Very nice. Then our taxi came to pick us up and we went back to town, ran into Heather and Brandon of Peace Corps and had breakfast, then headed back to Las Tablas to get the rest of our stuff and get out of town for good. Of course on our walk back to the frat house with our camping bags we got totally assaulted by kids with water guns. It was just annoying, not fun. |
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