Carnival and Earthquakes!

Before I tell you about Carnival, I just wanted to report that I’ve officially felt my FIRST EARTHQUAKE!! On Friday night, Jessica and I were talking in the kitchen as we waited for an apple cake to finish baking. She was telling me a story, but I had to interrupt and admit that I had no idea what she was saying because I felt like I was moving. I wondered if it had something to do with the fact that I was leaning against the oven so I moved away, but I still had the feeling. I was such a weird feeling. I leaned back again and could still feel myself moving. I was worried I was about to pass out or something. Jessica was looking at me sort of strangely, but then I got over it and we continued on with our conversation. She called me about an hour later after she had left to tell me that it had been an earthquake! She said she felt it too, but didn’t say anything since neither of us realized what it was. She thought she was just imagining she was feeling something since I said I was. Turns out that Lindsay felt it too down in Cajamarca and so did Kevin all the way on the coast in Trujillo! Lindsay said things feel off shelves in her house, but I don’t think anything like that happened here. I thought we’d hear something on the news about it, but so far I haven’t. That might also be because I don’t have a radio or TV…. At any rate, I finally felt my first earthquake! How exciting!

Carnival was like nothing I have ever experienced in my life. First of all, it’s technically only one week in February, but since the beginning of the month, people have been gathering at night to party, dance, and sing their coplas (special songs for Carnival). They stay until the sun comes up and then start all over again the next night. Peruvians are such partiers – I don’t know how they do it!

We arrived in Cajamarca on Friday, February 16th in the afternoon, but decided to just have a chill evening since we knew the rest of the weekend would be crazy. Saturday is apparently one of the central days of Carnival and the way it is celebrated in Cajamarca is by throwing water balloons, paint, and whatever else might be available (I’ve heard everything from shoe polish to oil to urine!). I had to run 6 miles that day so I got up at 6:30 am to try to avoid as much paint and water as possible. Luckily I made it back to the hotel still clean and dry, but I didn’t stay that way for too much longer.

Lots of Peace Corps volunteers had come in for the weekend (from many different departments) and were staying at another hostal in a great room with a balcony facing the street. We all agreed to meet in their room on Saturday morning to kick off the day with mimosas, painting ourselves, and of course throwing water balloons from their balcony. I was talking to Giff on the phone around 10:30 am before I got too wrapped up in the festivities, but had to let him go after seeing a bunch of friends come in from the street already covered in paint! It looked so fun – I had to be part of it! I went up to the balcony room and discovered some kids were about to run an errand for something we forgot. Like a big dork, I volunteered to go because I really wanted to be part of the action. With only about 10 more feet to walk until we were back at the hostal, I thought I had survived my first venture into the streets until all of a sudden a huge group of Peruvian guys came from around the corner, and I knew I was done for. One guy put his arms around me so I was trapped and his friend threw a huge bucket of paint at my back so I was covered from head to toe – including my hair! I know this probably doesn’t sound very fun, but it was hilarious! I was laughing so hard. What a great way to get the day started!

My friends and I had bought a big gallon of blue paint the day before because we heard that if you’re already painted, you’re less likely to get paint thrown at you. I guess it’s a nice idea, but whoever told us that must have been Peruvian because since we’re gringos, we are number one targets no matter how painted we already are. However, not knowing this yet, I decided to go inside and paint whatever skin was exposed to “protect” myself. We were laughing at ourselves because we bought SO much paint. Everyone called us the Blue Man Group because of our blue paint all over us, but we enjoyed it. After painting ourselves, we spent time filling lots of water balloons (so we could have ammunition) and a few water bottles with blue paint. We went upstairs to join the group and throw more stuff from the balcony, but when it was time to leave and go into the streets, we somehow got separated from them. Most people travel around in huge groups of 20-30 people, but since we got separated, it was just Kevin, Lindsay, Heidi, and me. It was hilarious trying to protect ourselves. We were each carrying a bottle of paint and a huge, heavy bag of water balloons. We were getting pelted from all angles and felt sort of helpless with our hands full. I didn’t want to put my bag of balloons down or it’d get stolen so I tried to throw paint at people, but every time I did, it would only go about two feet in front of me and not get anyone or anything – just the street. You should have seen how covered in paint everything was, including the taxis. I tried to get a taxi stopped at a traffic light, but couldn’t even do that. I was hopeless with my paint, but once I got rid of that, I was much better with my balloons.

As we were on our way to the plaza, we got attacked by a big group of people throwing from the window of their house. Naturally we fought back, but getting the balloons to their window was pretty difficult. We decided to go for the group of people (more family members) standing on the street outside of their store. Unlike me, Kevin is a good athlete and therefore has really good aim so the balloon he threw at them nailed someone right in the middle of their group. We were so excited until the person turned around and we saw it was an older woman! Oops. We decided to give up on them and just run for our lives. It was so funny, but we felt bad. Oh well though – if you’re on the street, you’re free game. If you don’t want to get hit then you’re best off staying inside.

We heard that the opening ceremonies were at the stadium so we tried to make our way there to meet our friends. Unfortunately by the time we figured out where it was and made our way down there, we had already missed everything and were walking opposite all of the people leaving the stadium so as you can imagine, we were prime targets for them and got dowsed with even more water and paint. I know you’re probably reading this and thinking it doesn’t sound like much fun at all, and to be honest, I was skeptical, but when you know what to expect and just get into it, it’s so much fun. I got paint in my eyes and even my mouth at one point because I was laughing when someone threw paint at me, but you can’t get mad because that’s what the day is all about.

By about 4 pm we had run out of ammunition and were getting hungry so we decided to head back to the hostal to refuel. On the way back we ran into our friends who seemed to be walking with a huge parade of people playing musical instruments, but decided to meet them in the plaza after we had found some food. We were gung ho about going back out, but once we made it back to the hostal and settled down for a minute, we realized we were exhausted and getting cold from being so wet. Instead of going all the way back to the plaza, we threw our remaining balloons from the balcony room and called it a day. But what a BLAST! It was, without a doubt, the most fun I’ve ever had in Peru! It’s really hard to explain what it’s like to be there, but I honestly can’t believe how much fun we all had.

I felt so bad leaving Lindsay and Kevin at their hostal because the whole place was trashed. There was blue paint and water (from filling up the balloons) all over their bathroom. We did our best to help clean up, but I was grateful we were staying at a different place (you know how I can’t stand a mess). The balcony room looked like a tornado had gone through. I felt so bad for the staff at the hostal, but I guess they expect it since it’s an annual tradition. Some Peruvians even threw water and paint inside the hostal!

After taking a looooong shower, I still had blue paint on my neck and arms, but felt much better. Reannon came over with taco dip (from the States!) and we enjoyed some food and relaxation. It felt so nice to just lay down and watch TV after all the excitement of the day. Luckily the water and paint throwing stops after the sun goes down so you’re safe to walk out in the streets after dark. We went out to dinner with Kevin and Lindsay and then for a piña colada at the “Mexican” restaurant, but had no energy to do anything else after that other than go to bed. As we were walking back through the plaza after dinner, my friend Annie tried to pull me into a circle with her to dance, but when she wasn’t looking I escaped. I had no energy. We went back to the hostal and were in bed by 10:30 - apparently the paint throwing combined with mimosas and running around in the sun took it right out of me. But what a blast!

So here comes the silly Americans part of the weekend. We knew that Sunday and Monday were big parades, but mistakenly thought that the water balloon throwing part was over. On Sunday I had gone to the locutorio (phone booths) to call Giff and got drenched by a water balloon about ten feet away from our hostal. I went back and changed my clothes and decided to wait a few hours before venturing back outside. One of our friends was visiting from Piura and wanted to get cheese and yogurt, etc. for lunch since that’s what Cajamarca is known for. Don’t ask me why we thought we would be safe from water balloon throwing at this point, but apparently we did because we left to go buy the stuff. Well we didn’t even make it as far as the corner before I got a huge 5-gallon size bucket of water thrown at me! So I went back to the hostal, changed my clothes again (into my PJs because everything else was wet), and vowed not to go back into the streets until after dark. Sorry Giff – no phone call today. We were able to get our cheese and yogurt though because we paid our friend Brad to go buy it for us – guys don’t get targeted nearly as much as girls, surprise, surprise. We spent the afternoon inside watching movies on my computer and eating good Cajamarcan food while we waited for my clothes to dry.

On Sunday night some friends and I went out for a late dinner at NY Pizza (definitely not New York style, but pretty good for Peruvian pizza – they actually use real tomato sauce instead of ketchup). After dinner we decided to head over to the plaza to see what it was all about. None of us were really expecting to go after dinner so we had purses, cameras, cell phones, etc. with us that we wouldn’t normally have taken. The plaza was more packed than I’ve ever seen it in the past six months. There were lots of food and alcohol vendors and then lots of people standing in circles, singing their coplas, dancing, and drinking. With all the people that are there – especially drunk people – you can imagine it’s a goldmine for thieves. Even though I was walking arm in arm with Lindsay, with my purse in between us, lots of people were eyeing it up and making me very nervous. Luckily nothing happened to me, but after only about ten minutes of walking around, Heidi’s phone got stolen out of her pocket and she didn’t feel anything! She too was walking arm in arm with another friend and even though the phone was stolen from the pocket in between the two of them, neither of them realized what happened until afterwards. It was really scary and she was obviously really mad so we decided it wasn’t worth it to stay any longer. I would have liked to go back one night to dance in one of the circles, but I wasn’t going to risk it when I had my purse with me. There is always next year.

There was another parade on Monday that had all of the reinas from the different provinces. I wanted to go to see the float from Bambamarca, but that didn’t work out so well. The parade was supposed to start around 11 am, but of course didn’t actually start until 1ish. I went around 2 with my friends Matt and Laura, but by the time we got there, it was impossible to see anything (people started staking out their spots at 7:30 am when I was running!). I had learned my lesson from the day before and was wearing my running clothes still because I didn’t care if they got wet, but my friends had both just showered and were so annoyed when we got drenched within the first ten minutes. We debated staying, but as Laura said, “we just got water raped – I’m outta here.” Haha. If I was going to get wet, I wanted to at least see something, but clearly that wasn’t happening so we left after just 10 minutes. That’s another thing I’ll have to save until next year. Don’t worry though; I have a plan for next year. I’m going to ask someone if I can pay them to watch it from their roof. Unfortunately since we’re gringos, we can usually get away with stuff like that.

After getting back to the hostal and showering, I spent that afternoon hiding in my room as well, watching movies with friends until it was dark and safe to walk on the streets. However, once it got dark, we were all too exhausted to go anywhere so we ordered pizza and spent the evening recounting stories from the weekend and watching TV.

I got back to Bambamarca early on Tuesday morning (got a free ride from my boss who was passing through town!) and thought Carnival was over until I almost got hit by a few water balloons that afternoon. Turns out it wasn’t really over until Saturday (last night). They have this tradition called Unsha where they decorate a tree with presents and then dance around it and take turns taking a whack at it with an axe. In Bambamarca, the ones I’ve seen aren’t trees, but huge displays at the top of a big wooden pole. Apparently once it falls, the whole crowd goes running in to grab the free presents (brooms, buckets, clothes, etc.) and whoever was the one to make it fall has to sponsor the party next year. I was invited to one last night, but I went on a paseo with my girls yesterday and was exhausted when we got home. Plus I don’t know how crazy I am about being around drunk people using an axe – only in Peru! I’ve also heard it’s kind of dangerous when it falls because people will trample over you to try to get to the prizes. I think I’ll pass. Maybe next year….

All in all though, in case I haven’t said it yet, Carnival was a BLAST!!! I can’t wait for next year’s celebration. If anyone wants to visit me for this, you are MORE THAN WELCOME. You won’t regret it!