My last trip was to Pasto in January 2014. I went there because I wanted to be and know the carnival of blacks and whites, because all the Decembers I watched the news and it saw very exciting, also it was declared cultural heritage.
I traveled to Pasto with my mother, father and brother by car because the airplane’s tickets were very expensive. It costs more than $1’000.000 by person.
The trip lasted 7 hours, I didn’t like it because the road was very bad and had a lot of curves.
Pasto it’s a very cold city, the city´s temperature it’s between 9 and 17 Celsius degrees, and I'm a person very chilly, so it was horrible, I had to sleep with 5 blankets, and dress with 2 sacks. One of the Pasto’s landmarks is the Galeras volcano, I wanted to go there, but this place has prohibited de entrance because the volcano is active and could exploit, it’s dangerous. So I went to another landmark: the Cocha’s lagoon. This place is amazing because you can take a trip in a boat around the island, and then you can enter into the island and look at the forest and walk through it.
Finally, when you finished the boat’s trip, you can go to the typical restaurants and eat “trucha”, that is a typical fish from this lagoon. It tastes delicious, and you can eat with the regional soda “Cigarra”, but I didn’t like this soda so I order with lemonade. The days more important of the carnival are January 4, 5 and 6
The next day was January 4th, and it meant that the carnival of blacks and whites begin! This was the day of the Castaneda Family’s Parade, and is the day when all the people start the parties, start playing with painting, spray and talc. It was very exciting because you could play with all the people, you could make wars and nobody gets angry, all the people were friends.
The other days were playing days in all the city all the time. The people started to go out at 10 am, and last playing all the day, because in the night you continue the carnival dancing and drinking “aguardiente Nariño” in the discus. This drink is very similar to the “aguardiente blanco” but is a little bit stronger.
The day 5 is the black’s day, and the people black paint with black painting the white people. The day 6 is the white’s day and the people white throw talc to the black people. This day was the most important parade float, and I was very surprised because they were so beautiful, it was amazing!
The last day I went with my parents to eat Cuy. I was so nervous because it is very exotic and rare for us, its uncommon in our culture. When the plate arrived, I was shocked because you could see the Cuy’s form and it looks like a rat. When I tasted I remain surprised, it tasted very good, like a greasy chicken.
We finished the lunch and the trip gets over, we return to Cali, Colombia very happy because it was a very good trip.
I recommend to all my readers that go to the blacks and white’s carnival, its a very nice experience and you will love Pasto!
