And what a show. Pereira's parties -- which last a month, though it somehow seems a whole lot longer -- end with the infamous cabalgata -- the horse ride up and down the streets of town in which the only thing you'll see jiggling are the spectators' eyes. BOING -- cartoon style.
Nope. Those boobs don't move.
The cabalgata, in itself, is a bit, well, tacky. Exquisite horses, that really should be the center of the show, are shadowed by triple-d cups shoved into double-a corsettes, drunk horsemen, Burro-tecas (donkeys strapped with blaring music) and the general chaos that goes with any massive event where alcohol is present in Colombia.
And we're talking about exquisite, Paso Finos, purebreds (NO. Not the silicone-enhanced women .. the horses!), the finest horses costing tens-of-thousands of dollars and up. But all that is lost to a strange homage to a world whose values have kind of gotten mixed up over the years in which plastic surgery is an appropriate gift for high school graduates, and women become ornaments, investing more in their bodies than brains.
At one time, the cabalgata was a way for ranchers to show off their horses and skills on a horse -- a spectacle people looked forward to year-round honoring the hard-working ranchers, arrieros and horses.
Now, the basic idea is still there. There's just a lot of leather and plastic in the way of the horses. I think it should be a non-alcohol event at eleven o'clock in the morning so we could really appreciate the beauty of the horses. And wearing clothes that actually fit might not be such a bad idea. (Or would that be too radical?)
Normally, I avoid it, but this year I wanted to bring Amelia -- a huge fan of ponies. She loved watching the balloon and popcorn man and vendors selling hats and ponchos and spent the afternoon shouting, "Ponies! Boobies!"
You gotta love the candid way children see the world. Indeed, Amelia, there were lots of ponies and boobies. (A bit more of the latter, I'm afraid).
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