Carnaval in Gualeguaychu

The Beginning:

So this weekend my Indian friend, Brazilian roommate and I went to Carnaval in Gualeguaychu. It made for a great day. We took a surprisingly comfortable 3 hour bus ride, and arrived just before noon. It seemed to be a nice and quaint little town--very different from Buenos Aires. We bought reasonably priced drinks and enjoyed the relatively mild weather. Passing the temperate day in a relaxed town along a lazily flowing river while drinking deliciously cheap local beer with good company inspires only one feeling: content. It wasn't quite Hemmingway drinking mojitos on the beach in Cuba, the sand was clearly planted there by humans and the river was murky with sediment, but it sufficed. I’m pretty interested in what kind of wildlife there was in that river, since all of it was effectively invisible. Nit-picky details aside, it was picturesque.

Taking in the Scene:

We had a lot of time to lounge, and only headed out toward the festivities around 8:30pm as the sun started setting. That was good timing, as we were able to get in before it became overcrowded and had time to meet and socialize with the people around us. Everyone there was awesome, I’ve had good experiences with just about everyone in Buenos Aires, but here there was absolute consistency. We were invited to join people at several after-hours clubs, and everyone we talked to were very interested to find out where our unique Spanish accents were from (California, Texas/India, and Brazil).

The Festival:

When the actual festival started, I was surprised in a lot of ways. All the music was played live from the floats as they passed, and there was no shortage of sexuality and symbolism between the ridiculous costumes and surprisingly thoughtful floats. It seemed it was just going to be a series of inaccurate and borderline offensive cultural stereotypes; the first set of floats was simply a series of cliché depictions of Chinese, Indian, and Middle Eastern cultures. That irked me a bit, but from there the procession got on track.

The rest of the floats followed a very logical and interesting progression that I think is probably overlooked by most visitors (I couldn’t convince the people around me that there was anything of substance in the procession). The floats depicted the indigenous cultures and wildlife in South America. These were immediately followed by a Portuguese ship filled with conquistadors. The connection seemed obvious to me at this point, but 15 floats later people still thought I was imagining it.

The next floats depicted the missionary period, with giant symbols of European religion and culture, and after that it got really interesting . There was a giant float that represented the poisonous effects (literal and figurative) of the European colonists. The cultural symbols on that float were each perverted in an interesting way, and all centered on a diabolical piece of machinery pumping the poison into everything.

I thought that the festival had ended when a dark float that represented the deaths from plague, war, and murder came by, but it turned out there was a lot more to be said. A purely white float, full of angelic and redemptive images followed, yet this wasn’t the whole story either.

Next a series of floats showing beggars, corrupt politicians, giant and malicious visages of jokers, and a float full of people in suits riding a pig being lured by an American $100 bill. I thought the connections were pretty undeniable at this point, and I was happy to see this kind of awareness in a celebration that is largely considered to be a wild sex-romp. To be clear, in front of and on top of just about all of these were scantily clad dancers wearing the feathers of what I could only estimate to be about 2,000 large birds. So like most celebrations, it wasn’t without its conflicts of interest, but in all honesty I think Christmas is much worse (I find endless irony in obligatory kindness).

The depressingly true imagery of the poisons of European and North American culture was followed by the reaction. Giant floats loaded with politically charged messages followed. Some protested directly through protest signs, some had to be understood implicitly. These floats demonstrated the movements and hope that drive positive change. I was glad to see that, otherwise I'd say that the high spirited celebration would have ended on a really depressing note.

The Overview:

As a culmination of a lot of different things, my interpretation of Carnaval is a celebration of the current culture for everything that it is. The good, the bad, the free, the victimized, the taboo… everything is recognized and the whole time people are happily dancing and interacting with each other. Rather than cherry-picking events to highlight as stepping stones to the current situation, they put everything in perspective. Bad things happened, but we are what we are, and since we’re happy with what we are, there’s cause to celebrate.

Oh, and the after party was ridiculous. I’ve never seen a relatively bland area come to life like that.