Just got back from probably the noisiest and liveliest carnival I have ever been to. The traditional carnival in Las Tablas, Panama.

While most tourists who do carnival in Panama go to Panama City, you must visit Las Tablas to really see the soul of the people. It is essentially 4 days and 5 nights of non stop dancing, Seco, singing, fireworks and general bachanal.

The fotos on this page are all from Friday the opening night, where the queens from last year paraded getting ready to hand over the crown to the new new queen.

Calle Arriba vs Calle Abajo

Most of the small towns of the Azuero peninsula in Panama have a friendly yet fierce competition every year between Calle Arriba and Calle Abajo. These are two “virtual” streets who each compete for the winner of the the queen of the carnaval. Essentially these are like the samba schools in Rio. Of course these towns are much smaller, so 2 is about realistic for each one. The sizes of these towns dont stop the creativity and vibrancy surrounding them.

Nights of Luxury

The nights are for Lujo (or Luxury). The cars and costumes are extremely ellaborate and they use vast amounts of fireworks, singing and crazy horn music to illustrate the point.

Each car starts with the flag bearers who are then followed by some dancers and drummers on the floor. These guys also at times blow up what seems like 100’s of thousands of firecrackers.

These guys are followed by the main car. This was the car for Calle Arriba’s first night. Click the top thumbnail for Calle Abajo’s car.

Every night the cars and costumes are different. The queens are accompanied by several girls and princesses.

After the main car you get a crowd of seco drinking members of the groups dancing and singing songs loaded with insults about the other queen. I didnt personally understand a word of it but, I’m assured that it was very funny. Finally you get the band on a seperate car. This is a pretty intense horn based orchestra who performs all night long on nothing but pure Seco as well.

Gay Carnaval

In Las Tablas Panama’s gay community plays a very active role in the carnival. They help out with everything from makeup and costumes to roudy behaviour. They also have their own queens, whos contest Reina Momo is televised by the always hilarious program La Cascara.

The leader of the chorus for Calle Abajo was a hilarious black gay guy, who one night was wearing an Afro wig complete with a bone through it.

Security

Generally speaking it was a pretty calm peaceful carneval with only one real violent event. Where one Panama City gang member was most likely killed by another. Security was very strict and everyone agreed that the police did an excellent job.

For the mojadero (see below) the police were dressed very coolely in black swimshorts and tshirts.

Pub Herrerano

After the parades everyone congregates in the open air makeshift night club Pub Herrerano or simply PH. This place gets unbelievably crowded and the crowd goes nuts all night long.

The music is mainly Reggae and Merengue. Drinks cost $1, bottles of Seco cost $10 and half gallon bottles $15. So you can imagine it was a merry place.

PH’s are normally found at all the major festivals and carnivals throught the year in Panama. We also went to the one in La Villa de los Santos, which was a bit less crowded and probably more enjoyable for your average foreigner.

Mojadera (The wettening)

The daytime at any Panamanian carnival is the reign of the Mojadera or Culecos. In Las Tablas this consisted of about 10 petrol tankers filled with water, spraying it out over the dancing carnival goers.

Everyone normally goes in bathing suits and old tshirts. I met some Dutch tourists who had been suprised by this and were soaked in their normal street clothes.

This is just crazy. Supposedly Panama uses more freshwater during carnival than for the entire rest of the year. I’m not sure that its true, but it definitely looked like it. Just imagine 100,000 people completely soaked to the skin and dancing. This is definitely worth experiencing. But please dress appropiately (and dont bring cameras, cellulars or anything else that could get damaged).