CARNIVAL!!

So the last weekend was spent enduring some very long busrides for one of the best weekends yet in my study abroad. Jefe, Kaitlyn, Rachel, Paul and I made our way down to Panama City for Carnival 2009! 15 hours later we arrived in what we only discovered later was one of the most dangerous parts of the city to discover our booking was mixed up, and that we in fact did not have a hotel room waiting for us at 5am in the morning. Exhausted we wandered, and eventually found the backpackers inn, where we each paid about 16 dollars a night for one full size bed and two singles. Yes kids, Kaitlyn and Rachel rotated sharing a bed with me, but dont worry everything stayed PG.
After passing out for 3 hours we made our way to the Panama Canal on these old yellow school buses that were painted over in crazy funky colors, jam packed, and sweltering hot. The Canal was cool to see but a little anti-climatic as Rachel likes to say. We watched a ship from Malaysia do the transfer, and the tax it had to pay was 297,000 dollars! There was a crazy man who once swam the canal and even he had to pay a few dollars tax. Its really an incredible feat of engineering though.
We went back to our hostel, but not before picking up some food from the grocery and the cheapest handle of bacardi i ever bought in my life, and we pregamed for carnival with some drinking games, and rapping about IBs. (dont ask) Carnival was awesome. There were tons of little tiendas selling shish kabobs which I ate way too many of and very loud thumping music along a massive street full of people. People were throwing confetti, which was really little white hole punched pieces of paper everywhere, the nice little kids throwing them in your hair, and the rude machitos throwing them directly in your face, along with spraying cans of odd foamy white stuff everywhere. Basically, if you go to Carnival, plan on getting very,very dirty. We made friends with a bunch of little girls, and danced, and they covered us in confetti. So much fun. Beers were 60 cents a pop... not lying.. they really were.... we would get upset at the stands that tried to charge us a dollar... (returning to US prices is going to be really painful, I know)
Paul and the girls went back but not before our little vegetarian (no names) went after a mcdonalds chicken sandwich with bacon. ¨Its just a title! i can eat meat if i want!¨ hahaha, dont worry i have a picture to prove it. Jefe and I stayed and danced the night away. We pretended to be brother and sister so that way we could dance and meet people but he could still easily protect me from those crazy latino boys. He then picked up a hottie who managed to get him to take his shirts off (half naked yes) and spin them over his head while dancing. Even more hillarious... one of the girls we were dancing with that night recognized him in the middle of downtown Panama city, pointed at him and pretended to wave clothes over her head. How did such a large city become so small?
We spent Saturday at Panama Veijo, checked out some old ruins, bought some cool indigenous crafts, and then went to downtown where we found the cheapest shopping ever. I bought a dress for 99 cents, shirts for 1.90 among many other things in our little shopping craze. The boys abandoned us because they quickly realized we would be a few hours. Saturday night we met up with the Pennsylvanians Dave and Matt (odd random connection through my moms tennis coaching partner... very cool guys though) where we pregamed again and then went to carnival. Saturday was way more packed than Friday and there was a huge line to get in, which we waited in for a while... and then we just snuck up front and cut the entire line. Im talking about at least an hour wait. The girls slipped through quickly but the guys had to wait a lot longer on the other side. It was really odd because you got into Carnival and there was a huge line of girls waiting for their guy friends or boyfriends, or just male family to get through security.
Saturday night was full of dancing, confetti in the eye, and searching for our good friend paul. The girls made there way home early again, and by early i mean 3 in the morning, while I and the boys decided to hang out. When we were cutting through a very large crowd, our friend paul starts dancing with a girl. we move a few feet away, hollaring to him to come with us, and then we start talking to some Latin kids. we see paul moving away, who has obviously lost us, and we start hollaring for him. Our new friends chased after him, calling out his name, but Paul, being Paul, brushed them off and booked it faster through the crowd. More on his shennanigans later. Dave goes off trying to find him in his typical forest tracker style, and in the meantime another guy takes a swing at a national guard soldier. The national guard and cops swoop in, and people are frightened. The crowd parts in an instance because the people there are obviously very scared of the national guard. We lose Jefe and I hang onto Matt being like omg i cant lose you too! Luckily we quickly recover Jefe, and Dave appears at our sides like he was never gone, and we spend the rest of the night searching for Paul inbetween drinking beers and dancing.
You may be wondering... what in the world was Paul doing this whole time? Well apparently the girl he met was actually a hooker, which he discovered when she started asking for dinero and prices. We got some very good advice later that weekend ¨If shes prettier than you, shes probably a hooker¨ remember that boys, it is very good advice. At some point he tries to pay for one of those 60 cent beers with a 100 dollar bill, (he thought it was a one) and before he realizes his mistake the person rips it so he only has ´2 thirds of a bill now. Then wanders, very far away from Carnival and somehow gets himself in a cab ride for 10 dollars to get back to hotel. He arrives where Kaitlyn and Rachel are sleeping, and wakes Rachel up saying I need money, because of course he has no other cash. Shes half asleep, very confused, and not happy when she hears a very deep and angry voice, ¨dinero, dinero ahora¨ The cab driver ended up in our hostel room doorway, because despite the fact that the hostel does not allow visitors, the woman told him our room number and the door was unlocked. They gave him 3 US dollars and 4,000 colones (costa rican money) and had to convince him that it was real money and he could go to the bank and exchange it. Oh paul. The other boys and I arrived back only about 10 minutes after all this.
Sunday was spend in Casco Veijo, another old part of the city which was absolutely beautiful. We walked around, grabbed some lunch and then went back to Carnival in time to dance in the rain and watch the parade. The parade was awesome. It was how you picture carnival to be, with everybody in costumes, confetti, water, dancing and just a lot of fun. Sunday was the best day because we really enjoyed the city and carnival, and got to see all the traditional costumes and dances. We ended sunday listening to matt play the banjo (he taught me a little bit) and the scariest taxi i have ever been in. it made the most frightening noises and we kept waiting for the tire to blow and to crash and burn. When we asked him if we should pull over he just said ¨esta bien¨ and turned the music back up to cover up the noise. The busride back took 24 hours because our first bus broke down for 7 hours. While that was pretty torturous Carnival and Panama City was so good, that we considered it well worth it.
Pictures soon I promise!! particularly a bunch from Carnival. It seriously was amazing... a little bit of a shit show... but def. completely worth it.