Oil, Glitter, and Perfumed Foam

So, last night, after eating at a neat little seafood place that I´ve taken a liking too, I grabbed a liter of Pilsen at the nearby store and started reading a book I paid way too much for. At about 10pm, which is fairly early here - I eat dinner at about 9-9:30pm - I heard what can be simply described as lots of drums. I grabbed my camera and easily found the crowd.*

*Camera  note: I have lots of pictures and even some short movies, but I have yet to be able to upload them anywhere so far. 


They had the main drag on the penninsula - Ave. Gorlero - blocked of for tambore, the beginning of Carnaval, which I didn´t think started until next week. Anyhow, this is tambore:

1. A guy with a big, sparkley banner marches first, upon which is written what specific group is coming next. (I have no idea how many groups there were, as I arrived after they started 10:30pm, left before they were done, 1:30am, and fell asleep at 2:00am to the still-beating drums.)

2. A half-dozen odd guys follow the first guy with giant flags in the color of the group. Lots of gold, lots of purple, lots of green, and lots of Uruguayan light-blue.

3. Now come the dancers in increasing attractiveness - and legality. The first are about twelve years old, decked out in glitter and not much clothes. A little strange and awkward. The next group of dancers seemed about sixteen, eighteen, something like that. Less clothes, more glitter, oil. The last group was the crème de la crème (homey!) of the dancers. Only pictures can do justice, so I´ll try to get those up.


4. After the dancers, and before the tambores (drums) were two people dressed up as chariacatures of an old, fat black women and an old, cane-carrying black man with a medicine bag. They danced just about how you imagine they would. It was like black-face, but sparklier. Once again, pictures ASAP.


5. The proverbial caboose of the drum train was, obviously, the drummers themsevles. Probably about thirty-sixty in any given group. Cool stuff.


Now, this whole progression of a single group took about fifteen to twenty minutes, and I have no idea how many groups there were. Twenty, probably more.


Oh, and there were vendors who sold espuma perfumada (perfumed foam) to kids who would run around and blast the dancers with the stuff. So not only were they covered in oil and glitter, but it looked like they were all hit with shaving-cream balloons.


All in all, a good, quiet, Sunday evening.