Bike About South America with Stuart and Anita

The excitement in the air is palpable.  The drums beat vigorously.  The keys of the wind instruments are alive and the cumbian sounds fill the air.  We shuffle our feet one by one as we are shoved through the cattle gate flowing in with a sea of people, through the security checks and onto the stand.

Third row from the back our friendly Colombian hosts make room for us greeting us as 'gringos'. We stand within hands reach from the bar and within reverberating distance of the Cumbian music band in the Palco (stand).  The crowd is pumped and elevated on tip toes on the aluminium scaffold benches, glancing down the avenue twinkle eyed in anticipation of the show.  They start to chant, sing and dance to the live music.  It has become infectious. It is impossible not to get into the groove. The fat man next to me begins to jump in excitement sending waves of movement through the flimsy aluminium palco and I’m thinking....’whooa, you don’t want to be doing that too much longer buddy.’  The rum, the whisky and the vodka is now flowing as quickly as the sweat is draining from our pores.  The crowd is high – not yet drunk, just pumped and proud to be Colombian.

We are here for the Carnivals climax.  The Grand Parade; The Battle of the Flowers. It is the first of three consecutive days of parading down the streets of Barranquilla. It is also the finale of six weeks of round the clock partying, festivities, art and cultural events.

We have been here now for 24hours and strolled the streets in the searing sun, soaking up the atmosphere.   Amongst the sidewalks are endless stalls of bright and cheerful Carnival souvenirs and T-shirts. Taxis and various modes of transport covered in Carnival stickers, streamers, foam and/ or flour.  Locals and tourist are walking street decorations, vibrantly dressed, some with wigs and gimmicky gear but most with a typical symbolic Carnival hat.  The Carnival vibe is all around.  

The initiation flag is waved and the show begins. First to lead the way are the Barranquilla street cleaners, not quite moving in synchronization but proud to play an active role in the Carnival show.  The crowd cheers them on, followed by the police and the security men, who also got a gig. This was just the warm up.

The first float led the parade with two crop top girls dancing in a glass box: a crowd pleaser with the boys.  Each float that passed by turned up the extravaganza notch just a bit more: more girls, more jazzy decorations, more louder music. Miss Colombia and the runner up rolled by, blowing their kisses into the crowd. Another crowd pleaser, as the men demonstrated their machismo behaviour and approval of the fine lasses with deafening wolf-whistles and calls of ‘revueltos.’. All trying to outdo each other in the hopes of some attention!  But more impressive than the beauty queens passing on floats with the royal waves in the air, was the hundreds of rhythmic Latin American dancers moving in sequence. These were the really beautiful people, always radiantly smiling with a sense of cultural pride.

Barranquilla and the Caribbean Coast is stewed in culture and is the backbone of an African and pre-Colombian-influenced ethos. It is the region from where the Cumbian music style originates and the Caribbean salsa developed. We have since learnt is quite different to the salsa of Cali. Cumbian musical instruments include guitars, accordion, bass drums, flutes/horns.  African, Mestizo (Spanish/Indigenous), Mulatto (Spanish/Afro), Afro/Indigenous, Indigenous and Spanish descendants are all part of the Caribbean Coast. Not only were the Carnival costumes colourful but the people were too.

The Palco is getting more rambunctious. And just as Stuart is about to raise his hands to take another picture we hear a shout from the back, 'Gringo! Take a picture!' We laugh and continue. Little did we realize at the time that this catch-phrase would make us famous for the rest of the day, as a member of the crowd kept repeating ‘Gringo! Take a picture!’.

But the show wasn't all about girls in hotpants and the boys chanting 'revueltos' (spin around). It did have some political seriousness and some famous faces as we saw 'Chavez' and Pablo Escobar walk the line. 'Shrek', ‘Mr T’ and 'Shakira' - originally from Barranquilla even showed up in the parade. The day was filled with lots of banter, skits and performances. The crowd threw flour and foam.  It was part of the fun but thankfully our stand had a lot of relatively tame middle class families so we managed to escape pretty much unscathed. Placed on the other side of the road were the more economical stands with less shade and less elevation.  A glum gringo sat by himself amongst better equipped Carnival-ites, with flour, foam and rum.  Every now and then when we glanced across at him we noticed he was becoming whiter and whiter.  It was probably about the time he couldn’t see through his eye lids anymore that he departed....poor bugger.

The Carnival weekend was expensive; however we were here for a purpose – to experience the Colombian culture. And you wouldn’t be experiencing the Caribbean way if you didn’t have a bottle of rum in hand. So Stuart and I decided to splurge on a 125ml bottle of fine Medellin Anejo Rum, which we brought in, in a plastic bottle. For 6 hours, between two, this little bottle was barely enough to wet the lips.  It is the culture to share your drinks.  One shot for you and one for your neighbour. We found ourselves rationing our small amount of liquor, timing our shots to when our neighbour’s glasses were already full.  We learnt to become more prepared the following day and purchased a 750ml bottle, as we decided the rum was going down so well in the heat of the day and we wanted to share. When we got the bottle of rum home; didn’t we prove to be amateurs at the drinking game.  It took us half and hour, a pair a scissors, a knife and a pair of pliers to get it open.  I had to laugh at ourselves hovering around the bottle like it was a school science experiment trying to gain access to the liquid gold as if we were desperate alcoholics. We had only being drinking for one day.....

The day two crowd was a little more subdued and late to arrive.  Stuart and I did arrive a little earlier to claim two very good seats in the front row.  Our ‘Gringo! Take a picture’ man was a little quieter (probably the effects of a heavy night) and the ‘Malcom Newman’ look-alike stepped in to continue harassing Stuart. The parade kicked off at 1pm in a similar fashion to the previous day. However the theme was more focused on folklore dance and music and far less commercialized than the Grand Parade. I felt the folklore performances were also a little more authentic as large groups of dancing schools passed by all doing their utmost best to flaunt their skills and express a great deal of passion and pride behind this art. They tirelessly stopped to pose for pictures and receive gratitude and applause from the crowd. Young and old, they all had beautiful smiles.

At the end of day two, Stuart and I retired to our hotel exhausted and reflected on what a wonderful experience we had had over the past few days. It was amazing to see such a grand collaboration of dance performances all pulled together into one show.  Barranquilla’s people justifiably boast about their Carnival, saying it is the second to Rio De Janerio for grandness and magnitude.  It was flamboyant.  It was impressive.  It was highly organized. It was fun.  It was the ultimate cultural experience.