Sunday was the 1st day of Carnival, which here is a 3 day party in the streets of the center of the city. There are small marching bands everywhere, parties in parking garages, live music in the plaza, and the entire day I did not see one police officer. It’s like a legal Mifflin block party that spans 20 streets minus the police and involves a lot more dancing. It is also customary to throw water balloons and permanent dye on everything and everyone. We dressed ourselves in clothes that we could throw away and at the end of the day we were covered head to toe in every color of the rainbow. I wore two bandanas to protect my hair but still found myself with a green chunk of hair that will not return to its original color. All day we were drenching ourselves in baby oil to help keep the dye from staining. Now, two days later the dye is mostly gone except my entire back is pink.
The day ended early, about 6pm (it also started early about 2pm), when we ran into my friends parents near the plaza. They took us home in the back of the truck. We took the preliminarily bath by immediately jumping into the pool upon arriving home. By 9pm I was completely dead and went to sleep.
The next day we took a small road trip to a river in the forest to relax remove more of the dye. The road to the river barely exists so we were the only ones around. Its pretty amazing to swim in a jungle river.
