Photo: Flickr.comBarranquilla hotels full for carnival
Adriaan Alsema
Hotels in the northern Colombian city of Barranquilla have filled up completely for the four days of its annual carnaval. The city will be the center of Colombia until Tuesday.
The pre-carnavals started weeks ago already, the preparations for the highlight of the city's culture way before, but Saturday until Tuesday is the Big Carnaval. The streets will be filled with dressed up people dancing cumbia.
The official start is teh traditional Battle of the Flowers, a parade of more than 400 traditional dance groups showing their art on Vía 40, popularly renamed Cumbiódrome.
Large metal constructions on the side of the road should give the tens of thousands of visitors a chance to see the beauty passing by.
Barranquilla authorities have 1,500 police officers ready to secure the safety of those visiting the carnaval and 450,000 condoms will be given away for free to those who want to take the carnaval back home or to their hotel.
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I think Carnival would be an absolute blast and I hope to experience it one day. It sounds a lot like Mardi Gras but with a Latin twist to it. I wonder if there are a lot of encounters with the police during these types of events. I also found the part about the distributed condoms quite interesting. It is interesting how they handle sex so openly compared to the U.S., I am not sure that condoms would be handed out at Mardi Gras but I don't know.
Here's a story that might interest you:
ReplyDeleteColombian intelligence service wiretapped journalists
New York, February 25, 2009--The illegal wiretapping of prominent Colombian journalists endangers their work and compromises their confidential sources, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.
In its Saturday edition, the leading newsweekly Semana revealed that agents of the Administrative Department of Security (DAS), the national intelligence service, had spied on critical reporters, Supreme Court judges, opposition politicians, and officials in President Alvaro Uribe's administration.
"We call on Colombian authorities to conduct an exhaustive investigation and bring all those responsible to justice," said CPJ Americas Senior Program Coordinator Carlos Lauría.