Flower Parade - Volcan Panama - Diablitos

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apanamamamalast year2 min read

Last Sunday was the Flower Parade in our town in the mountains of Panama. The parade lasted 7 hours, but we only stayed for 5! Ha! Toward the end of the parade, the diablitos were out dancing.

My kids have previously been terrified of these guys, and they're not my favorite either! You can hear these guys coming from down the road. It's a traditional part of pretty much any parade.

A Panamanian friend sat by me during part of the parade and told me a little about these guys. They used to go down the street with whips. They would whip people who didn't give them money, so people always ran from them.

They wear a scary mask made out of paper mache and scarves with bells on the end of them. They jingle as they dance down the street in really exaggerated movements. My friend said it's hard for them to see or breathe in these masks, especially dancing all the way down the parade route.

When they came by, my girlie cuddled in closely hoping they'd miss her as they danced down the street. It's funny because some kids really wanted their picture taken with them!

For the last bit of parade photos, you can see how these guys were marching down the road. They didn't do high kicks the whole way, but quite a few times in the little bit I could see them. I can only imagine how sore they get the day after!

And two last floats in the parade. This one had bubbles galore coming out of it as it went down the street. It was from the town called Cerro Punta that is right above the mountain from us. It's where most of the vegetables for the country are produced.