Carnaval in Cajamarca, Peru

What is Carnaval?: It is basically several weeks of festivities right before Lent. And by festivities I mean that people heavily partake in the following: partying and dancing in the street, throwing water balloons and dumping buckets of water on anyone and everyone in the street, and street parades with very colorful costumes. In Cajamarca, Peru, every year from February 7th to March 3rd people are permitted to throw water balloons in the street. So basically during these dates, leaving your house is not safe! ;) Every country does Carnaval a little differently but these themes tend to occur in most every country in which Carnaval is celebrated.

Everyone in Peru knows that they best place in Peru to spend Carvanal is in Cajamarca, Peru. So for years Peace Corps Volunteers head up to Cajamarca during Carnavales to partake in the craziness. I went for the first time this year and it was absolute madness but so much fun! The best day was the paint/water war. Just imagine thousands and thousands of people in the streets partaking in the biggest paint war you have ever seen in your life. People literally walk around with buckets of paint, water, and flower and have at it. You can buy paint and fill your water balloons, water guns, or water buckets at any house or store that allows you to. The only part that I didn't like was when people would come up behind me with their hands full of paint and put it right in my eyes! The paint would get in my contacts and I was literally helpless because I couldn't see at all. But my friends helped me and we kept fighting. Like I said, it was absolute madness but so much fun at the same time. I wish I could have had my camera with me to take pictures in the streets but it would have gotten ruined from all the paint and water.

If you don't want to participate in the paint/water war, then you literally cannot leave your house that day. Even if you leave the house as an innocent bystander not looking to participate, people will throw paint or water at you anyway.

Starting out! Literally as soon as we stepped out onto the streets, people started blasting us with paint and water! I remember being nervous when we took this photo because there were some guys approaching us with buckets! 

By this point I was freezing cold and was ready to be done so we went back to the hostel to shower and rest. Running around in a paint/water war in the streets sure does make you tired! 

Apart from the paint wars we also got to spent a lot of time together as friends which is always appreciated :)

Gia, Abby and I :) 

Another highlight was the Carnaval parade. The parade went on for at least 5 hours and we got to see so many beautiful costumes and outfits. We made the mistake of leaving our hostel for breakfast in the morning and we returned soaking wet from being blasted by so many water balloons and water guns! We quickly realized (a little too later!) that the safest place to watch the parade was from the balcony of our hostel.

Abby and I watching the parade from our balcony. 

It was really rainy while we were in Cajamarca but my good friend Emily and I still managed to get out to the city look out :)

Please excuse my lack of posting lately-regular internet has been very hard for me to come by,. especially internet that is fast enough to be able to upload photos! But I have so many photos and stories of things that I have been wanting to share!