IF YOU LIKE PINA COLADAS...

Las llamadas are the traditional carnaval parades of the candombe troupes. This is the second year that this particular parade has run for two nights instead of one. We went on the bigger night, and despite getting caught in the rain, it was FANTASTIC! I'm not sure how many drum troupes we saw, but we saw many before we left in a downpour a little before midnight I think, and they ran until 2:00 a.m. or so. The parade flowed very much more smoothly than the one that had opened Carnaval until the rain caused intermittent delays. Candombe has its roots in Africa, and it's a mix of Latin American and African drum beats. Apparently, the neighborhood where the parade is used to have a bunch of drummers get together hang out and drum; then more joined in; then more and more. Now hundreds and hundreds of people come out these two nights [and other times as well] to make this exciting event a reality. We could see the flags of each new group long before they reached us, when the drumbeats were just a faint throb. Dancers came next, costumed in feathers, sequins, and bright fabric. The candombe drummers followed in large groups, making a a tremendous sound that you could feel reverberate right through your body. Audience members joined behind the drummers dancing and clapping. I LOVED it! Despite the rain, despite the people drinking large juice boxes of wine, despite the massive amounts of pot being smoked around us, it was very, very exciting and beautiful. I would go again and again were I able, but I wouldn't go again to the boring Carnaval parade. [I'm trying, by the way, to upload some candombe drumming, in video format; hope it works! Allen Teel, this attempt is for you!]

CARNAVAL 2008

OK, so you want to know something really funny? I tried posting a short little video clip of some girls, somewhat scantily-clad-but-still-clothed, dancing on a float to really loud music to give you, dear readers, a small taste of what the Carnaval parade last night was like. But Blogger turned me down. Thus I have now been rejected for attempting to post porn on a website! I never thought I'd live to see the day! Wow.

So instead I'll post a couple of much-less-interesting still shots and tell you a wee little bit about Carnaval (spelled correctly, by the way, even though my fingers want to type CarnIval with an "i" every single time).We enjoyed (mostly) the opening parade of Montevideo's carnaval last night. The parade started around nine (but we left the house at 7:30, walked downtown, got there around 8 and started looking for spots to stake out, since there were 28 of us in our group last night) and lasted longer than we did. We left in several different stages, around 10:30, 11:00, midnight, and one group left after that (curfew is at 2 A.M.).
The parade started with the queens of carnaval and the queens of the llamadas riding on floats. Trucks advertising Pilsen Beer and Antel (the national phone company) followed. Marchers carried large horizontal banners featuring various sponsors and kids from the audience would lay down in the street so the banners would pass over them. Throughout the whole thing, there are vendors hawking their wares walking up and down the sides of the street; they are selling various food items, like roasted meat, potato chips, and drinks, or they are selling knick-knacks like pins and/or wands that light up or blink and Carnaval masks ranging from the traditional to Disney characters and aliens. It was fun seeing the murga groups in their elaborate costumes, but the parade wasn't really the best forum for hearing what I understand to be their excellent singing. Some rock bands played amplified music from the top of trucks, and that worked well. The candombe drum troupes were the most exciting, but they were fewer and farther between than I had hoped. I hear we're in for some candombe treats at the beginning of February, however. [The second picture shows a few members of our group, and you can best see Mike, Nobuki, Colter, and Kelsey; we paid for seating, as opposed to standing forever and ever along the sides of the streets.]

During the LOOOOOOOONNNNNG spaces between groups, kids sprayed each other with foam from aerosol cans and threw confetti. Most of the confetti, rather than glittery or papery, was little styrofoam pellets, either colorful or plain white. We all looked like we had odd dandruff before too long. The kids also sprayed foam on the floats and on the dancers. Performers later in the night fared better since the kids had depleted most of their ammunition. We were surprised to see that there were far more men in the parade than women.
We were told to be aware of pickpockets and camera-stealers, but, as of this writing, I haven't heard of anything bad happening to any of our group. My group left the earliest, around 10:30, and I wanted to walk back on the main street through all the crowds and excitement; they humored me for quite a few blocks. However, after we passed a bunch of pot smokers (Krista said it reminded her of the Abilene High bathrooms; sad, eh?) and, after a bunch of drunk people started a conga line right behind Krista, she said, "Mom, take a left at the corner; we've gotta go up Colonia instead." So we did, and it was a lot more calm, just one street off the chaos. All in all, I'm glad I went, but I'm also glad I didn't sit there until 2 A.M.

[The really blurry picture is there to show you how it FELT when we were in the crowds, trying to get through to anywhere.]