Riohacha Carnival

Festive street processions and merry theatrical performances, mysterious Venetian masquerade masks and vibrant samba dancers in Rio de Janeiro. From the old days, the grand celebration of the carnival attracted thousands of tourists from all countries of the world. They spent the whole year designing and creating their costumes, rehearsing the dances and eagerly waiting for its opening. Each country and city is proud of its singular carnival history, but each of them is united by dazzling colorful dresses and dances.

The towns of Colombia have their carnivals and festivals. And in the sunny resort city of Riohacha, one festival follows another one without a stop so that both the locals and the hundreds of travelers, coming for a visit in this dreamy southern town, wouldn’t get bored. Each year, the indigenous tribes of the Wayuu people arrange their festival here. During the musical festivals named Francisco and Cuna De Acordeones, the national Colombian music «vallenato» is played here. During the Del Dividivi festival, a beauty contest is held and the awarding ceremony – the coronation of the Dividivi Queen. But the most one-of-a-kind festivity in Riohacha is the local carnival that was the first in Colombia.

Annually, in the last weekends before Ash Wednesday, the locals demonstrate their talents under the beat of traditional music. But not only songs and dances attract the spectators and participants of the carnival to this city. The main event of the holiday is the tradition, which is more than 150 years old. After the ceremonial parade, everybody goes to the Sala lagoon and bathes in its therapeutic mud, and then continues the march leaving their trace everywhere. This tradition goes back to the French sailors who came here in the 19th century at the carnival days. They covered their bodies with mud and joined the parade because that was the same day the French national holiday, Bastille Day, was celebrated. From that time on, it became an integral part of the Riohacha carnival.