Ah yes, celebration! This being carnival week, I look back on last year, before this rece(depre?)ssion-- hit. My friend Lorry, a New Orleans resident and a Mardi Gras maven, was my traveling companion. She wanted to compare her beloved hometown version to a famed South American carnival.

Rio was the obvious choice, but we chose instead the second-largest blowout in the world, in Barranquilla Colombia, on South America’s Caribbean coast. Their “carnaval” has been celebrated since the 19^th century, and received a UNESCO Heritage Award as a “magnificent” example of folkloric expression.

I had been entranced by the colonial city of Cartagena a couple of years before, so I felt comfortable in that coastal area of Colombia. (It’s the mountains I’d avoid.) Anyway, Lorry and I met at our hotel in Barranquilla ready to roll. And here’s my short take/journal of our spectacular carnival weekend getaway:

Friday

First impression of Barranquilla: speeding drivers, art-deco architecture in pastel hues, blue neon lighting, fruit vendors, lots of plastic surgery clinics. Buildings festooned with festival flowers, animals. Breezy, balmy.

a fruit vendor in Barranquilla

We visit the “Romantic Museum,” recommended by locals. Learn about the history of King Momo, a big-shot local chosen yearly for the parade. We see a dozen Carnaval Queen gowns (any kind of queen would dig their over-the-top razzle dazzle). Miniature constructions of this commercial port city show a melting pot of cultures and religions. History, antiques.

We learn about residents over the years: Nobel-Prize-winning writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez, (he wrote the novel One Hundred Years of Solitude near here). Shakira, who earned a statue for giving back to her hometown, not just shaking her hips. And Nina Garcia, an editor at Elle and one of the judges of my beloved Project Runway, a Barranquilla homie.

We window-shop in a generic-looking mall. Good value. The dollar is okay here. Lorry buys a cute halter top. I might have a few years ago, but no way now. So I purchase some coffee. Also poke around a nearby handicraft area: woven bags, glittery carnaval tees, lots of miniatures of Marimonda, the elephant emblem of this celebration, representing truth, wisdom and anything else you want.

Step into the contemporary cathedral across the street, built in 1982. Vast stained glass windows rise to cavernous ceilings, huge interpretive sculpture of Christ, impressive mosaics.

Lunch at La Cueva, our one really special meal (the rest, empanadas, sausages, sandwichs on the go.) This has been the Barranquilla meeting place for “hunters and intellectuals.” for 60 years. Art, elephant footprints, lore of 1950s artists and writers and drunks. Cool. Weird. Welcoming.

Music called “cumbia” continues as day turns into night, around barrio corners, from crowded, colorful buses – sound of drum, recorder and a cheese-grater thingy that sounds like maracas when scraped. We latch on to connected locals and poke into a party where “Angie” the gracious young Carnival Queen shows up, along with the regional governor. They make the rounds of dozens of these gigs. Sup on coconut water, empanadas, not much else. Street dances- mix of Congo, Spanish and indigenous people. Go to bed hungry but eager for tomorrow’s main parade.

Saturday

Many carnaval events over several weeks, up until the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday, but today’s “Battle of the Flowers” parade is considered the highlight.

We arrive around one. Family crowds, good vibe. Young people handing out toilet paper for porta-potties, and condoms (for later?), with ads on the packaging. Also Bible pamphlets from fundamental churches. Most of them dumped. Viewers stand for hours in the sun, smiling, chatting. Some beer, lots of water.

thousands of participants, hours of parades

The scope: five-six hours, several miles, thousands of participants. Vivid colors, smiles, music that vibrates through your body, dancing, floats. Fast pace. No lags. Fire-eaters, jugglers on stilts, beautiful women swiveling in provocative get-ups, close, but no nudity. Gorilla suits, masks, feathers, floating balloon animals, transvestites playing to the crowd, sequins flashing in the sun, big skirts, headdresses, movement. Most unusual participants: small men covered in mud, eating mud.

A red carnation, thrown by a gorgeous girl, hits me in the head. Battle of the flowers?

over-the-top color, costume, symbols

On and on. Street vignettes poke fun at evil and powerful. Not PC—black face, big-nosed Middle Easterners, Castro, Osama, Bush as a devil with a penis gun (no boos though). Hugo Chavez (not a fave here) and a Latin version of Hitler, with a placard advertising an optician. (I swear I hear people say, “Hi Hitler!”--did they realize the casual play on words?) No comment.

Eventually I get doused in puma, a flour mixture. I look like a powdered-sugar-covered gingerbread lady. Also pose for a camera which turns out to be a water pistol. A wet gingerbread lady. But I feel safe and exhilarated and stay till the end.

A spectacular parade, with others to come through Tuesday.

Sunday

Didn’t sleep much last night as street music goes on until 4 am. Sounds as if outside my window, but no one there. Early breakfast of empanadas, steak with onions, watermelon and coffee in the hotel patio, by a fountain. Beats my usual wheat toast and tea.

At the airport, get frisked twice, put through two machines and my goods get sniffed carefully, including sealed coffee. The lady ahead of me carrying-on  a five-foot feather headdress, is much admired, and also sniffed. Funny.

FYI: For a more complete vacation I’d add a couple of days in Cartagena, an hour south, to explore that extraordinarily preserved old town. And if you seek beach time you could add a day or two in Santa Marta, north of Barranquilla. I haven’t been there, but locals noted it for clear water and wide sands.

Cartagena, best preserved Spanish-colonial outpost

As for me, I’m impressed once again by the gusto and courtliness of the Colombian people, and their traditions. Lorry said she’d never seen anything like that carnaval parade. According to her, Mardi Gras in NewOrleans celebrates decadence; this was a much grander, more joyful celebration of local culture.

And btw, we’re so glad we did it. This year we would have just stayed put; times have changed so very much.