It may not be Rio, but it's still Carnaval...
Another day, another stamp or two in the passport. Time to go to Uruguay. Due to it being Carnaval season, the fast boat I wanted to take across the river to the heritage port town of Colonia del Sacramento was full, so in order to get to Montevideo in time for the evening's festivities, I had to take the slow car ferry at 0930, meaning being at the ferry terminal of Buquebus by 0830, meaning being up and about disgustingly early. The things I do for travel sometimes... I choose also to blame the unspeakably early hour for the near-loss of my passport, which decided to take a swallow-dive out of my hands from an upper level in the ferry terminal, resulting in a not-terribly-muffled exclamation of "shit", a frantic surge back to and down the stairs to the main concourse and a relieved reunion with said travel document once I had explained to the Argentine gentleman who had picked it up off the floor in confusion that it was mine.
The crossing of the Rio Plata itself was relatively easy, although to get some perspective here it should be noted that the fast catamarans take around an hour to cross the estuary at this point and the car ferry takes around 3 hours - that river is almost certainly wider than the Channel even at that point. After watching the departure from Bs As, I decided fairly quickly that an unending vista of brown water was not reato my taste and went and crashed out in a chair for much of the crossing. On arrival at Colonia, it was a simple matter of claiming my bag, getting on the waiting bus (the joys of through-ticketing!) and heading off for around 2.5 hours east to the capital, Montevideo, which journey left me the lasting impression that southern Uruguay makes Cambridgeshire look hilly.
On arrival in Montevideo, I got a boost to my confidence in my Spanish proficiency when I managed to get from the bus terminal into the centre of town and on to my hostel without being able to use any English in the process (and without getting lost either). There I was checked into El Viajero by two lads both confusingly called Felipe, so they had settled that one would be Filo and the other would be Pepe, which at least made things manageable. I took a little time to get myself settled in before heading off that evening for the parades, where I had paid through the hostel to get myself space on one of the terrazas, the balconies or roof terraces where many of the families on the route rent out space to people who want an uninterrupted view of the festivities. I was the only one from my hostel going that evening (quite a few had gone to a similar event the previous night), but my fears of having nobody to talk to were unfounded, as I had an "it's a small world" moment, bumping into two Finnish girld I had met briefly in Florianopolis just before I left there, and also chatted with the owners of another hostel who were there with some of their guests.
The parade itself is called the Desfile des Llamadas, which translates roughly to the "Parade of the Calls" or something similar. The initial part is a short series of floats carrying the Princesses of the parade, all in white dresses and dancing to the music, after which comes the main part, the marching groups. Each of these follows the same basic pattern, with the first members to come along being those waving the giant flags (almost exclusively males), followed by the first of the female dancers in costumes of varying levels of spangly-ness, then somewhere along the dancers will be a series of "character dancers" dressed up as old men and ladies, before usually the most stereotypical Carnaval dancers (the ones whose costume makers appear to have only had time to get to the shops for sequins and feathers) and then the drummers. There aren't any other instruments, all the music is provided by the drums, which are all large African-style ones carried on straps, of varying pitches, and played in superb unison. The style of music and dancing is known as candombé, and is of largely African origin. Although the same basic pattern is followed by each group, there are variations in the costume, the specific tune laid down by the drums, the dancing and the overall theme, and these are assessed by a panel of judges who determine the "winners" of the parade sometime the following day. The whole affair lasts a goodly part of the night - the first parades came along just around sunset at about a quarter to nine, and when I left around 2am, exhaustion having got the better of me, they were still going through. There are so many groups now that the parade is actually split over 2 days.
The crossing of the Rio Plata itself was relatively easy, although to get some perspective here it should be noted that the fast catamarans take around an hour to cross the estuary at this point and the car ferry takes around 3 hours - that river is almost certainly wider than the Channel even at that point. After watching the departure from Bs As, I decided fairly quickly that an unending vista of brown water was not reato my taste and went and crashed out in a chair for much of the crossing. On arrival at Colonia, it was a simple matter of claiming my bag, getting on the waiting bus (the joys of through-ticketing!) and heading off for around 2.5 hours east to the capital, Montevideo, which journey left me the lasting impression that southern Uruguay makes Cambridgeshire look hilly.
On arrival in Montevideo, I got a boost to my confidence in my Spanish proficiency when I managed to get from the bus terminal into the centre of town and on to my hostel without being able to use any English in the process (and without getting lost either). There I was checked into El Viajero by two lads both confusingly called Felipe, so they had settled that one would be Filo and the other would be Pepe, which at least made things manageable. I took a little time to get myself settled in before heading off that evening for the parades, where I had paid through the hostel to get myself space on one of the terrazas, the balconies or roof terraces where many of the families on the route rent out space to people who want an uninterrupted view of the festivities. I was the only one from my hostel going that evening (quite a few had gone to a similar event the previous night), but my fears of having nobody to talk to were unfounded, as I had an "it's a small world" moment, bumping into two Finnish girld I had met briefly in Florianopolis just before I left there, and also chatted with the owners of another hostel who were there with some of their guests.
The parade itself is called the Desfile des Llamadas, which translates roughly to the "Parade of the Calls" or something similar. The initial part is a short series of floats carrying the Princesses of the parade, all in white dresses and dancing to the music, after which comes the main part, the marching groups. Each of these follows the same basic pattern, with the first members to come along being those waving the giant flags (almost exclusively males), followed by the first of the female dancers in costumes of varying levels of spangly-ness, then somewhere along the dancers will be a series of "character dancers" dressed up as old men and ladies, before usually the most stereotypical Carnaval dancers (the ones whose costume makers appear to have only had time to get to the shops for sequins and feathers) and then the drummers. There aren't any other instruments, all the music is provided by the drums, which are all large African-style ones carried on straps, of varying pitches, and played in superb unison. The style of music and dancing is known as candombé, and is of largely African origin. Although the same basic pattern is followed by each group, there are variations in the costume, the specific tune laid down by the drums, the dancing and the overall theme, and these are assessed by a panel of judges who determine the "winners" of the parade sometime the following day. The whole affair lasts a goodly part of the night - the first parades came along just around sunset at about a quarter to nine, and when I left around 2am, exhaustion having got the better of me, they were still going through. There are so many groups now that the parade is actually split over 2 days.
posted by Pat at 12:00 pm
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