Cartago Another Cartago adventure... - (41) more edit 2008-06-29 - rec# 107

Another adventure! We read in the paper that there would be a festival in Cartago the weekend of the 28th and 29th. On the 29th there was to be a parade of carts (starting at 10am), horses (at noon), and bulls (at 3pm). Didn't know a lot more, other than it was in Cartago, but that was enough to get us on our way. Somehow we had the wrong tim in mind for the beginning of the parade. We were thinking noon, not 10am. At about 10 we realized our mistake and flew out of the house. Down to the bus stop (took a wrong turn on the way!) and off to Cartago. It was never really clear to us WHERE this was, but most parades in Cartago go past the central square, so that would be a good place to start looking. Nothing there except a Peruvian band, dressed as native Americans playing while a clown made baloon animals. Justs the normal stuff. We headed toward the church to see if there was anything going on there...wasn't. So we asked a parking atendent if he knew where the parade was, and showed him the newspaper article. He had no idea, but thought we should ask the man in the photocopy place. He knew where the parade was, in "El Carmen", just up the hill. We headded out out of town and up the hill. It's now something like 11:15 (parade starts at 10am BTW). On the way up the hill we asked a guy if he knew where the parade was, he didn't, but knew a guy. He took us to a local Tico and was really frendly and knew of the event. He wanted to take us up the hill to make sure we got there. Had a lively conversation about the futbol game (Germany v Spain) and we learned he wanted ANYONE but Spain to win. He wanted to know where I was from and said that he knew a little about Boston, but that that was the only part of the US he knew anything about, he thought it was a pretty city. We were shortly at the church (everything happens around the church) and he said he was sure the parade had not yet started. It haddn't as it was only 11:30. What were we thinking? This was a very local parade. Everybody knew everybody and they were there to show off their animals. These HUDGE animals lumbered down the narrow, twisty street with cars parked along the side. Some took hits from the horses and I suspect some from the oxen too. But...no problem. As in Burning Man "Remember, safety second!". In the back of a small pickup sat a band (I assume of locals) playing. When the horses came they all danced to the music, and everybody wanted to be center stage (which created quite a log jam of traffic). I was able to get a nice video of part of the performance of one horse. Just another day in paradise. It's great what you can discover when you don't know where you're going and not sure when it begins.