The Festival de las Máscaras in Hatillo will go down as by far one of the most bizarre things we have ever seen. Early on Tuesday morning, as we were headed out to explore the caves, we turned down the road and witnessed this commotion. A large & VERY loud parade of people on decorated cars & many more walking along side. They had sirens & loud music, everybody wore the brightest clothing they could find any every shade of neon, and they were all carrying shaving cream to spray passing cars.
Each “float” had a theme- most based on some type of character or cartoon. I didn’t want to be too obvious taking photos as they were already a bit drunk (at 9AM) and a little unruly. Young people, old people, kids all running around & hanging on to these modified carts and Jeeps with loud engines & endless sirens wailing.
Now I was frantically googling on my iPhone trying to figure out what the heck was going on in this town. They had a police escort & we were just happy to go along our merry way without getting sprayed or harassed by anybody.
It wasn’t until we were headed back that evening from Rincon that we got stuck on the highway in a HUGE traffic jam. Apparently the main event was that evening & hundreds of these floats were all parading up and down the streets (over curbs, through medians) to get to the park where the party was happening.
We sat in traffic, trying to get through this intersection, surrounded by cops & partiers for almost 45 minutes that night. I thought about getting out to look around but H warned me the lady in the car next to us had a can of spray & was eyeing me awfully mischievously. I didn’t take any night photos, but every single car had a swirling flash strobe on it like the one above & they still had the sirens going full blast as they’d rev their engines.
Looking at some of the other photos I can find online, it looks like a really neat festival, but I was a little nervous being caught off guard in the middle of it.
The best I can figure is this is some type of 3 Kings celebration always held on the 28th & they really go for the Mardi Gras crossed with a Carnival party with elaborate costumes, parades, tons of drinking & general festivities. The best explanation I could find is on this Flickr page, but I’d love to know more about the party- you can tell they spend all year preparing for it.
GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: Staying home tonight after being out all week!
