Days 52-53: Valparaíso & Viña del Mar, Chile

I had mentioned that there were two big events in Valparaíso the weekend we were there. The first, as I said, was the tattoo convention. And on Sunday, we went chasing after the other event: La Fiesta de Mil Tambores, The Party of 1,000 Drums. We met up with a few of our new friends near the beach venue that day so we could all take part in the event together. One of our tour friends, Tom, even came from Santiago for the day, so we excitedly reunited with him during the festivities. Once we were all together, we walked down to the beach to begin what would be an eventful afternoon. 

The beach and nearby street were filled primarily with teens to thirty-somethings who had descended upon the city to take part in the event. One of the first things we noticed upon walking around was the body art...and this time I am not referring to tattoos. Numerous individuals were covered--or in the process of being covered--with paint in a memorable display of self-expression.

Warning! R-rated for possible nudity...

In addition to the body art, the beach was converted into a massive party with people hanging, talking and drinking with their friends.

And then, of course, there were the drums. About every 10 minutes, a small drum band would begin beating on their instruments and a crowd would quickly form around them. Each band would take about 15 minutes in the spotlight. At that point, they would end their performance and a new drum band would begin playing somewhere nearby. Naturally, we were part of the drum-chasing crowd and excitedly listened to multiple performances.

It was an exciting and lively event, and everyone was clearly there to have a good time. Eventually, the drum bands began trailing off toward the street where they seemed to be organizing themselves in preparation for a parade. We stood on the sidewalk for several hours, all the while continuing to be entertained by the drummers, other performers, and of course, the people-watching.

After awhile, we lost faith the parade would ever start. Parade or no parade, by that point, we had already had our satisfying fill of the entertainment. So we walked our way through the crowd to head back into town. As we walked, or rather got swept away by the immense volume of people traveling in both directions, we were able to pass by the entire parade line, many acts of which were performing in-place. In that way, we got a chance to see everything we had wanted to--a massive production with artists of all kind, and quite possibly, more than the promised 1,000 drums. It was a great day, which we ended with one final round of drinks before our friend Tom left for Santiago and due to exhaustion from the event, we retired to Nona's B&B for the night.

The following day, Dan and I took a bus to the nearby town of Viña del Mar. It was a beautiful, clean beach town, and we spent the afternoon hanging on the sand in the sun. We then returned to Valparaíso for our final evening, and took one last opportunity to soak up the art contained on the walls of this special city.