Carnaval de la Vega

Last Sunday, I went to the Carnaval in La Vega, a city about 30 minutes outside of Santiago that is widely recognized as having the best Carnaval in the DR.  To be honest, though, I personally prefer Santiago's, for two reasons.  First of all, there was very little music in La Vega's parade, which seemed to change the entire focus of it.  In Santiago, because there was music, all of the lechones and other characters in the parade went along dancing and showing off their costumes, while everyone watching them clapped and sang along.  Sure, there were a few lechones who ran around smacking people with the vejias, but most of them were too busy bopping along in the parade. 

Diablos, looking way more menacing than lechones.

In La Vega, on the other hand, there was almost no music or dancing, which meant that the parade consisted mostly of diablos running around, swinging their vejias, trying to whack as many people in the butt as possible.  (In Santiago, the Carnaval devils are called lechones; in la Vega, they're just diablos.)  It was kind of like playing tag on an elementary school playground, but more painful and with way more people being it.  To protect ourselves, we tried to keep our butts against a fence or a wall whenever possible.  Whenever we did want to move, we had to plan it out carefully - looking all around to make sure there were no diablos coming, then dashing to the next open stretch of wall or squeezing our way into the center of a moving crowd so we were protected on all sides by a layer of non-diablos.  Despite our precautions, however, we all still got whacked on multiple occasions. 

Pretty, but not Robalagallina strange

Also, while in Santiago there are dozens of different characters besides lechones, in la Vega 95% of the parade consisted of diablos.  And, while the diablos' costumes really were beautiful, they just weren't as creative as the lechones'.  It was like everyone in La Vega had gone to Target to buy their Spiderman Halloween costume with matching accessories, while everyone in Santiago, they had raided Goodwill for old shirts to turn into Simpsons costumes.  La Vega's diablos looked better and more polished, while Santiago's characters were shabbier but more interesting.

Still, all grumbling aside, La Vega's Carnaval was fun to see and did have some stunning costumes.  I'll now so you some pictures, so you can enjoy them in the best way possible - out of the heat and humidity and protected from the vejias - and you can decide for yourself which set of costumes were better.

Here is a pretty standard diablo costume.  Most of the parade looked more or less like this, although with different colors. 

Here was one of the more creative floats - a huge rolling scorpion followed by diablos that looked like Ancient Egyptian gods.

I like how there is one diablo looking creepily at the camera.  It reminds me of something out of Pan's Labyrinth. 

Snakes play far too big a part in La Vega's Carnaval.  We saw at least five people walking around with snakes wrapped around their necks, waving them far too close to people (like me) who didn't particularly want to be near them and letting braver people (like Stefanie) take pictures with them on their shoulders.  This was a small snake, but most of them were at least five or six feet long.

I'm not sure when Stefanie noticed there was a snake on her...

...but she was a good sport about it.

A group of scantily-clad quasi-Taino women...












...and the group of men that was walking alongside them, highly interested.  In their historical accuracy, I'm sure.

A deceptively cute little girl diablo.  The younger diablos tend to be the most zealous about swing around their vejias and, at the same time, to have the worst aim.  One of them whacked my hand by accident so hard I had a bruise on my knuckle for three days! 

 Some neon green diablos who look like they could glow in the dark.

 I think he was actually just asking this man to get out of his way, but it looks like he's about to eat him.

A very colorful diablo, lifting up his mask to get some fresh, relatively cool air.

I'll close with everyone's favorite type of picture: one of food!  Here are Ryshona and Miranda with their hotdogs, cooked on sticks over a charcoal grill, with ketchup, mustard, mayo, and hot sauce squeezed on at your request.