I left Cartagena, Colombia quite awhile ago, but it’d be stupid of me not to share some of my experiences from the Miss Colombia festival.
I got to Cartagena at the absolute perfect time. For the week that I was there the Miss Colombia festival/carnival/competition was raging. There were beauty queens on the stage and on the street.
All of the Miss Colombia contestants look like hotter versions of a young Sandra Bullock. Throw in an incredible body and you’ve got 2 reasons to never leave Colombia.
I describe the women in Colombia as ‘creamy’. They’re just so creamy.
Even the average women here have beautiful facial features, banging bodies, and are almost too nice. American sarcasm doesn’t really do well down here because they take things literally.
What is Miss Colombia?
Every year in the beginning of November Cartagena plays host to the Miss Colombia pageant. It’s just like Miss America, but some women have financial backing by Colombian drug cartels.
But the pageants aren’t the real focus of the week. It’s all about excessive alcohol consumption and throwing things at strangers.
On the first day of the celebrations I was sitting in a restuarante eating (FYI: soup, rice, beans, steak, fried plantain, and juice costs $1.75), when I heard a loud crack outside. My immediate thought – gunshot, Colombia, shit. But I looked around and no one seemed phased so I kept eating cautiously.
A minute later I heard another distinct gun-shot-like-crack. I turned to my neighbors and asked what was going on. They said something in Spanish that I didn’t understand but they didn’t look worried. As I turned back to my food I saw some kids out the front door throwing fire crackers. Woo…death temporarily avoided.
The Paint
A big part of the celebration is throwing paint at anyone who doesn’t have paint on them. So, inevitably, we got painted. After getting painted by every Colombian kid under 20, we decided that we weren’t being very American like – we needed to get our own paint and launch some preemptive attacks.
We bought paint and started some serious wars. Here’s the aftermath from a couple different days.
Some of the greatest times of my life. Other notable events include:
- dancing salsa in the street while a band full of cops played on stage.
- playing with a monkey some guy brought to the party
- dirty dancing in a club with some girls while their mom looked on and cheered.
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