All year long in Colombia there are carnivals in different cities, after the Feria de Cali there's Carnaval de Negros y Blancos in Pasto January 4-6 and I was lucky enough to be able to go. Some exchange friends living in different cities were in Cali and we met up and they invited me to Pasto with them, so in one day I called and got all my permissions and the next morning I was on bus to Pasto! Pasto was where we had our inbound orientation at the beginning of the year, it's about 8-10 hours away by bus and is pretty cold for Colombia, which means it's like September in Minnesota for me. I stayed in a Rotary family's house with my friend Astrid, from Belgium, but spent the whole time with 8 other exchange students.
With two friends from Belgium.
The foam spray, called carioca, is one of the highlights of the carnival. This was in the morning, right when we left the house, by the time we got home we were soaked head to toe in sticky foam that dries your face out horribly. They also chuck flour at everyone, so we had to buy sunglasses to keep it out of our eyes. The hats were an attempt to keep our hair clean, but it didn't work very well.
With two Austrians and a Mexican, the Finnish guy is in the back cleaning the foam out of his ears, it's awful in your ears.
Halfway through the parade we were already completely dirty. Of course being three clearly foreign girls we would always get attacked, but we fought back without mercy. The first day, after they parade, my friend and I were cut off from the rest of the group and were attacked with foam from all sides. It wasn't until after we got out that we realized they were robbing us nd had stolen my Blackberry and my friend's camera.
One of my favorite floats from the parade, it's carried by one guy who's supposed to be a baby monkey I think? He was really animated and had the perfect monkey face, it was hilarious.
Pasto is beautiful, the countryside and sky as well as the city, I love it there, though I'm happy living in Cali and wouldn't change it if I could.
Though in general Cali is more dangerous than Pasto (we could actually walk around in Pasto which I loved) during Carnaval there's more violence because it's so crazy and everyone is drunk all the time. There was a knifing two doors down from my friends house so of course we all went out to watch the police stand around, it was my first knife fight, I was really excited.
When we went to ask the police what happened, they asked to take a picture of me. It's fun being tall and white sometimes.
I'm so glad I was able to go to Pasto, and it being so spontaneous made it that much more fun. It was the first time I've traveled without Rotary in Colombia, but I'm planning on doing it much more now. I got a lot closer to the exchange students I was with and am planning on visiting them in Medellin and San Andres sometime in the future, hopefully sooner rather than later!
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