Carnival in Panama

After a day of knitting in the backyard of my hostel in Boquete (Saskia, 24, from Holland taught me once again, I had forgotten) and making Dutch hearty pancackes, I had enough strength to hit the road again.

It was time to celebrate carnival.
Well, all the people in Holland know that Carnival is not really my thing, but I tell you, here it’s a whole different story.
First of all I had to find a place to sleep. In Boquete everyone had told me call ahead, but I was convinced that I would find something. So I got off in the first town, Chitre, and in less then half an hour, in the second hotel, I walked into this guy who had a friend with a hotel around the corner who probably would have a simple mattress on the floor for me. While waiting for this friend I got introduced to his partner, Greg, 50 from the US, who had his own room an offered his extra bed. Yeaha, free lodging, with airco and a microwave, in the centre of town and I had a person to go drink beer with.

Carnival (Mardi Gras) is celebrated intensely in Panamá. The four days leading up to Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, are a big party in Panamá City, but even more so in the Península de Azuero. Here the celebrations are a lot more traditional and friendly. So that’s where I was.

So Friday night it all started. I was pretty tired so I fell asleep for a few hours before Greg woke me up around 11pm. The streets around Parque Central were already packed and the Queen was coming. We bought our first beer, I made a photo from the beer stand girls and we walked more towards the stage. 15 Minutes later we went up for another beer, I wanted to make a photo of the crowd……..and discovered that my camera was stolen. SHIT, I had this camera precisely one month! Truus had brought it over from Holland because they are so expensive here in Central America. Now I had to do it all over again, and shit, I had lost all the photos from climbing Vulcán Barú, the video from the sunrise. And I would have no photos from Carnival. I was really bummed, I had done so long without a camera and I was so happy with this one. Ok, take a deep breath, another beer please and lets get wet. The hoses went open and the crowd was douched down. This is the big Carnival thing in Panamá where the weather is nice and warm and it’s almost necessary to cool the people during the day. So Friday is the only night the hoses open up, the rest of the days it’s only during the day. I can assure you, you REALLY get wet, from earplug to underwear, you’re soaked, no escaping possible.

Carnival all runs around Calle Abajo and Calle Arriba. Those two streets parade against each other. They both have a Queen and a Tuna. During the day the Queen is driven thru the street on her decorated wagon, the supporters of the street follow her, and at the end is another wagon with a huge band which is her Tuna.
This band plays the same song, specially composed for this year. The other street has the same wagons and both circle around Parque Central and la Iglesia twice or three times, then they leave again. But they go really slow and this takes a few hours. Every day the Queen is dressed in a different costume, one day is traditional, one day is masquerade, one day is bikini etc etc. And the wagons are beautiful, really well done. Only the last night there are huge fireworks. Both streets ‘fight’ against each other to see who has the best Queen, best wagon and best fireworks.
So, the people start drinking at 10 or 11pm, the two Queens come by a few times, then around three the park is cleaned and the tank trucks with water are taken to the river to be refilled for tomorrow. The people all go to bed to sleep; really, they are all drunk and need to rest before the night starts. And then after a fresh shower and some comida they return to do it all over again but then without water. And nobody is dressed up except the queen, its very different then in Holland. And there are no fights, no stupid things. Everyone is bringing there coolboxes with beer and Seco and the girls are hitting on the guys. Good good atmosphere all around.

So much party, so much food, everything deep fried, meat on a stick is very popular. So much music so many people, half a million pass thru. There was a lot of pick pocketing. Greg had his phone stolen and another guy his passport, pin pass and money. And while I was in the police station to get a written form for my insurance, people kept walking in. Especially for Carnival many come all the way from Panamá City.

It was insanity, like every festival can be. Every day I would absorb myself into the crowd and see what the day would bring me.
One day I went to Las Tablas, encountered a cool family, hossed with them for a while and decided that they would be the ones to hang out with for the rest of the day. I ended up in this far away village for the ‘rest’ period and the comida and eventually I also slept there on the Finca with the pigs waking me up in the morning. Extremely nice people.
Another day I got talking to some younger kids and they took me around to open air discos in the siesta time and after the parades at night, this was a long day with a lot of Seco.

One day I went to yet another town where they had a beautiful traditional parade. Woman dressed up in white dresses that take a year to make, with jewelry that is worth thousands of dollars, extremely impressive, and the music in this parade is with jambees and bells, so nice. I really liked this smaller local parade in Santa Domingo.
And a few times I hang out with Greg and some other guys from the US. I have to admit that I was kind of glad that it was all over with tough, after four days of this you’re getting a little bit tired of the same and it’s not only you.
A little shopping for a new camera brought me a new Sony ones again, 6 pix this time and before I would head back to Costa Rica I wanted to visit one of the beaches in the Peninsula. But when I made my way to Agua Pura, the little village of my friends with the pig finca, to see if my hat and sunglasses were still there, I got invited to stay the night. The day passed, an iguana got butchered and her 32 eggs were boiled while her whole body went into another pan to be boiled as well for a few minutes. This makes the skin very easy to peel. The eggs were made with a lot of salt, and of course I was given at least five……the first one tasted ok, the second one a little less and the last three were hard to swallow, inside the leathery scale there is nothing more then yellow. You open de leathery cover and suck the yellow out. I swear to god, while I was eating my stomach was not agreeing and in less then half a day I had bad diary, like water. If I think about eggs right now I almost have to puke. The next four days it stayed like water and I became weak as can be cause nothing tasted good and I hardly ate.

My lovely family gave me an address in another town, where I could visit friends who owned a huge bar. I hitched there and the moment I arrived I was taken to a huge base ball game. It was all so nice to be so warmly invited, but I was so tired, my body wanted to rest so much that I was almost ashamed to be rude with my tranquilo behavior.
Two nights I stayed at this Finca, and knitted my scarf and watched some tv.

On Sunday I said goodbye to Panamá and traveled a lot of hours in five different busses back to Costa Rica. The boarder patrol didn’t want to give me a stamp because I had not received one when I came in, they wanted me to pay a $25 fine because I was illegal in Panamá, so I decided to just keep on walking and skip the whole boarder in total…… worked fine.

Back to the land of Pura Vida!