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Culecodromo: The Carnivals in Panama City, Panama are the Most Unique In the World

Looking around flashing everyone I could with my journalist badge, which I received in an online internet course for $50 bucks (not), I came to the conclusion that the Carnival celebration (Americans experience it as Mardi Gras, surely Carnaval’s French third cousin) in Panama is the most incredibly unique experience anyone will ever have. Sure, we don’t have barely-clothed, glittered dancers dancing up and down a strip like they were being exorcised for their sins, but it is a confirmed notion that Panama has one of the best “Carnaval” celebrations of our blue marble. In recent years measures were taken by the government and dubiously necessary Carnival Office to ensure that carnivals in the nation’s capital, Panama City, lived up to the hype garnered in no small part by the country’s dashing strides in tourism and real estate, and whoever lives near this murder scene can grab their complaints and shove them up their sour-trout asses… myself included.

Make no mistake: carnivals in Panama are incredible. You’d be hard-pressed to deny that no matter what you’re into, the carnival spirit is infectious and its spirit is going to get you. Arguably more important to the Panamanian than their birthday, Christmas, their families, and Jesus, this celebration is one that people plan months in advance. This is specially true for the aforementioned Carnival Office, which starts plotting the festivities as soon as the current ones are done on Ash Wednesday. The irony of this celebration, looking at it with my zoom far out into the stratosphere is that it’s often very close to Valentine’s Day, which is supposed to be about union, companionship, loyalty and all of those wonderful thingies Disney movies tell us when we are kids (though that particular holiday has been a victim of date rape, if you ask me); even more hilarious is the fact that “Carnaval” reaches its screeching halt the day marked by Christianity as the beginning of Lent, a practice brought forth from the Holy Bible that asks its believers to have a pretty shitty forty days. If you’ve never experienced Carnivals, allow me to provide the theories for its origin so you can then go on with yo’ bad self:

The origin of the name “carnival” is disputed. According to one theory, it comes from the Greek prefix carn (“Meat eater”), referring to a cart in a religious parade, such as a cart in a religious procession at the annual festivities in honor of the god Apollo. Other sources, however, suggest that the name comes from the Italian carne levare or similar, meaning “to remove meat”, since meat is prohibited during Lent. Another theory states that the word comes from the Late Latin expression carne vale, which means “farewell to meat”, signifying that those were the last days when one could eat meat before the fasting of Lent. Yet another translation depicts carne vale as “a farewell to the flesh”, a phrase embraced by certain carnival celebrations that encourage letting go of your former (or everyday) self and embracing the carefree nature of the festival.

This last definition is the one you’ll see every time you walk out of your house during the festivities. The Wikipedia entry for “Carnival” is quite extensive and gets into detail about celebrations all over the world but most of them have one thing in common: they use these days as an excuse to let go. There are plenty of articles written about the debauchery and abandon that runs rampant through Carnaval (including those written by yours truly), but I must quickly point out that there are other options. I don’t know how it is in your part of the world, but there tends to be some peer pressure about doing the Ultimate Carnival Experience: save a month’s paycheck, break up with your significant other but make sure it’s something that can easily be patched up once you’re back, buy an ass load of alcohol, take a pillow and ship yourself out to the Lion’s Den of Carnival. Once there, proceed to drink yourself retarded, make out/have sex with the first remotely attractive person you can find that actually sees something in you worth the embarrassment despite the vomit stains on your shirt, wake up not knowing where you are, who you’re with or how you got there (if you check A, B, and C you attain Carnaval Nirvana), rinse and repeat in any order you see fit. Mix it up a little. Odds are you won’t remember doing much of it anyway.

Of course, there are other ways to spend Carnivals without having to go full retard. Some people go to the beach. Others camp out, some even hop on a bus or plane and visit other countries; finally, there are those who take advantages of the free days off work to sleep, catch up with work or personal projects, or simply chill out at home. Before, I couldn’t even imagine what it must be like for someone to stay in for Carnivals since I always made it a point to flee from this particular murder scene as swiftly as I could; this year though, due to a series of unfortunate events I chose to stay in Panama City and chill out. Of course, as it is with most things that are ruled under the tyrant, iron fist of Murphy’s Law, I overlooked a couple of poignant things that have changed since the last time I stayed home for Carnivals, back when I was 13 and pre-pubescent:

1. The “official” carnival celebration, held in Panama City, was changed from the farther-off Via España avenue to the considerably closer Via Transistmica avenue, which is a minute away from my apartment building. This was thanks to former morning show host Mingthoy Giro, President of the Carnival Committee ’til mid-2008, when she was accused of stealing some copper statues that were originally placed at the entrance of a dubious museum that is considered one of the most balls-out dastardly acts of corruption of former President Mireya Moscoso’s administration. Somehow, these 1,000-ton statues of kids were removed from the entrance of the museum when someone realized they could actually put the museum to good use and stashed them in the warehouse of a municipal park. One fine day, someone remembered said statues existed and decided to check up on them, only to realize that they had disappeared. The blame game started, and Mingthoy Giro was ultimately nailed to the cross. Somehow everyone believed that this 5ft-4-in, 150lb woman who looks like she’s had one too many quemo treatments put these heavy-ass statues on the back of a pick up truck, melted them and sold them off for a couple of million dollars. Mingthoy cried bullshit but it was too late; the damage was done, and her time in the committee was cut short when she resigned. She hasn’t been heard of since, but the White Hand of Mingthoy continues to cast its shadow upon our lands, as Panama City’s carnival celebration is still in Transistmica, albeit a messier version of what it was when she was in charge.
2. Panama City has become somewhat of a metropolis, and all of the wonderful things that come with such a claim also inspire negative elements. As it is with everything, when something grows, its benefits grow exponentially… and sadly, so do its setbacks. Enter a new kind of crime: when I can turn on the TV and hear on the news how an armored truck was hijacked and millions of dollars stolen because the culprits used military-grade weapons (including a rocket launcher), I wouldn’t be surprised to see the first cape-wearing vigilantes piggybacking on the roofs of buses in the next few years. Since we don’t have our very own Batman as of yet (if it were up to me, he’d be call “Rataman” and that way not only would it be appropriate but it’d also be an obscure reference to Panamanian history!) and we’re still stuck with criminals that apparently have balls the size of watermelons, people are forced to fend for themselves. This is a prime example of the Escalation hypothesis at work. That’s how World War II started, y’know?

I might be exaggerating on the whole “I was 13 the last time I stayed in the city for Carnivals” thing. I went to Via España way back when, just to say I did and have some degree of first-hand experience on the matter. Getting out of there required an understanding of the human brain’s most basic survival instincts, since it was your worst nightmare wrapped up in barbed wire dripping with tetanus and Hepatitis A. I don’t mean to generalize, but it’s a pre-conceived notion that the citizens from the most dangerous areas of Panama City come to the capital’s Carnival to get their groove on… as well as fund their shenanigans. I hear it’s worse now, but the last time I went to Via España I almost had my wallet stolen, almost got into a fight with a ten-foot, drunken Magila Gorilla who swore I stared at his girl for too long (in fact, staring at anything for more than a second was like flirting with the possibility of getting into a tussle) and left with the sense that I was being targeted for robbery, and they would use any excuse in the book to do so.

Things are different now; back then there wasn’t a third of the police presence that there is now, and there are even checkpoints before every crucial spot of the Carnival where they check you for weapons and the like. There are also plenty of police barricades in adjacent roads with random breathalyzer checks. Now, this should comfort the populace, but it doesn’t do the trick as well as it should. You see, more often than not the police is just as bad (if not worse) than the criminals they’re supposed to apprehend. To many (including me), having more cops out often feels like there are now even more crooks in uniform looking for the slightest fuck-up so that I give them the bribe that’ll pay for their breakfast. and now, with the rubber dildo that is the penalties for driving under the influence super-sized and motorized, they can up their rates. Where you could weasel yourself out of a ticket with $5 bucks, now it’s $10. You still hear of cops that take pity in you and stick to the previous rate, but the point is that if the cops want to steal from you as much as the crooks do, then who do you turn to?

But I digress. Having established that Panama City’s carnivals aren’t the safest in the country, you can avoid incidents if you know what you’re up against beforehand; this goes for pretty much anything, anywhere. If you know that there’ll be people more prone to mug you since you’ll be smack-dab in the middle of a massive crowd, you’re bound to be more careful. This is specially the case for foreigners, who have been painted a wonderful scenario of fairy tale grandiosity thanks to Ruben Blades’ Tourism Master Plan. The flaw with such a plan, gargantuan and all-encompassing in nature, is that it ignores the cultural and social aspect entirely; I get the sense that Blades thinks that by ignoring the fact that the “Juega Vivo” or “me first” culture is hardwired into the Panamanian genetic code, it’ll go away. In the end, it’s an excuse for both cops and robbers to take advantage of the foreigner’s naivete; If you have someone who is used to paying $20 for a cab ride and goes to a Latin American country such as Panama totally convinced that it’s the paradise all the glossy commercials say it is, when said tourist gets scammed so much and so often he/she won’t be able to sit down without the help of a donut cushion, watch as how he/she will never come back to this place ever again.

The Via Transistmica format of the Carnival, its current incarnation, is a bare-bones version of Mingthoy Giro’s original plan: 4km of the avenue have been blocked off for the celebration, with more than a dozen performance stages peppered across the strip. These stages show national acts (reggae, salsa, merengue, rock, you name it) all throughout the day, while the big acts are saved for nightfall. The main stage, located at the end of the strip, is where the biggest names in Panamanian music as well as international artists do their shows for thousands of people every night. The stuff you want to do happens during the day, though: there are Carnival queens, and they parade down the strip in the most spectacular displays you’ll see all year. People usually support their favorite queen by marching behind her car/chariot/whatever it is, chanting songs and making noise. While this happens, there are others who go to the sectioned area of the Carnival strip for the famous culecos, known as the “Culecodromo.” If you’ve never been to a culeco, the gist is this: container trucks full of water (sanitized, though I wouldn’t drink it if I were you) park on the sides of the road as far as the eyes can see, while people whose everyone who walks in between them for hours upon hours until the sun comes down. Throughout the day, plenty of freebies are handed out by all sorts of companies, but you want to be there because it’s generally hot as hell and getting douched with water is just what the doctor ordered, and what surely sounds like a stupid way to have fun is turned awesome when you add alcohol into the mix. When you have a bottle of vodka working its magic in your system, the idea of jumping about with reckless abandon sounds perfect. You meet people, you hang out with them, you bump n’ grind if you’re into it, and so on. To put it in perspective, think about that one hobby you have that you’re aware is silly (and even embarrassing) but you enjoy it so much that you don’t care what I or anyone else thinks; if you can conjure that up, then you can understand the appeal of culecos.

Choosing to avoid the hardcore carnival experience for something more relaxed this year, I went out to the beach a couple of times, played Halo 3 and Call of Duty 4, and basically chilled out. I was still forced to go to sleep at 3AM however, because as I mentioned earlier in this piece I currently live a minute away from Carnival Central, and the music wouldn’t let me sleep. Don’t get me wrong; I’m the type that’ll stand next to the speaker at shows but that’s because I choose to, not because I’m forced to try and sleep when there’s muffled nonsense blaring through my window for 5 hours straight. I’ve slept on beds where I could clearly hear speakers the size of buildings blasting Hip Hop straight into my ears, music underwhelmed only by the sounds of gunshots and ruckus (and this was a posh neighborhood, too. Funny story, really), but really, who would willingly want to put themselves in a situation like that knowingly? Again, that’s what you get when you don’t know what you’re getting into, I suppose.

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