¡Fiestas Cívicas de Liberia 2007!

Last week were the Fiestas Cívicas de Liberia and let me tell you they were a pretty good time. They are an annual event that have been going on for over 100 years and are meant to celebrate the cultural traditions of Liberia and Guanacaste. A quick little history lesson, Guanacaste was not originally part of Costa Rica, it was it´s own country and was actually annexed about 150 years ago. It is hotter and dryer than any other province in Costa Rica and maintained a strong tradition of agriculture, ranching and the like. So, the Fiestas are to commemorate and preserve its strong folk heritage and they have lots of music, dances and parades throughout the week.

It was cool because our office overlooks the park in the center of town which was where a lot of these events took place. So, I could just look out my window and see a procession of horses clopping away and people playing traditional festival songs below. I enjoyed getting a good taste of Guanacaste culture for sure.

Aside from the songs and parades and normal stuff, Liberia also has some very odd traditions that go along with the Fiestas. "La Diana" happens every morning at 5:00AM and is where groups of people go around playing instruments, banging on things and setting off M-80´s to remind everyone it´s festival time. This gets especially raucus when people are just coming back from partying and join in the fun.

Also, the bull riding here is crazy! People absolutely love it because it is both idiotic and courageous at the same time. Riders try and stay on as long as possible but after they are off the bull stays in the ring and chases after everyone else who´s inside. There may be 100 or more young men in there and they duck and dodge to avoid getting hit by the bull. The point is to try and run past the bull and touch it and inevitably people get really hurt. The most dangerous bulls are the ones they let out without riders because they are usually a little bit smaller and faster and have pointed horns (they truncate the horns of bulls that are ridden). I saw one guy get caught from behind and then flipped in the air, another couple got slammed and one guy even got killed on Friday. The locals all say with a wry smile that it´s not a good bull or Fiesta unless some gets seriously hurt. ¡F´n loco no!

Aside from the traditional cultural events, they also have a fairgrounds where they set up food and drink vendors and these two gigantic portable discos. I´ve never seen anything like them before and they pounded dance music until 2:00AM just about every day. Two other writers for the Journal whom I hadn´t met yeat, Alex and Peter, came up on Thursday from San Jose and we went out Thursday through Sunday. The biggest night was Saturday which was absolutely nuts. There were hundreds of people in the discos and hundreds more spilled around outside. I was out late, around 4:00, every night and I can tell you there´s nothing quite as delicious as a juicy, salty stick of meat for $0.20 each when you´re walking home from the Fiestas early in the morning.