Candle Day

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Today is a holiday here in Colombia, the purpose of which is to celebrate the Immaculate Conception. The actual name of the holiday is something that I probably can't spell in Spanish, but it translates to Candle Day (it sounds better in Spanish).

Yesterday, in expectation of the upcoming day off, I asked people about the traditions of Candle Day, and heard varying things. Among the alleged traditions:

• lighting candles
• fireworks
• getting up at 3 or 4AM for candles and fireworks
• getting up at dawn for candles and fireworks
• partying
• drinking, specifically rum

Karen and I decided to wander around the neighborhood last night to check out the festivities, but I don't think anything had really started, aside from a couple of small apartment-building-front-yard parties. We saw a lot of lights, but most of those were probably just Christmas lights. And we went to dinner and then headed across the street for a beer, but neither location seemed unusually busy or celebratory.

At 3AM I was awakened by noise. I looked out my window and sure enough, there were some fireworks. I don't know why it's a middle of the night thing, but yep, people really do get up in the middle of the night to celebrate.

Now, in order for you to fully realize my observation of the celebrations, I need to describe my state a little more. Obviously I was drowsy, having just been woken up. And I only watched the fireworks for about 20 seconds, because that's when they ended. So I didn't have enough time to shake myself into full consciousness, and coupled with the fact that I was watching something fairly out of the ordinary, this brief fireworks viewing was perhaps the most dreamlike thing I've ever witnessed that actually happened. And this next part is the sort of thing that makes me believe it really was just a dream, but I'm pretty sure they were shooting the fireworks, inadvertently or not, at the walls of the apartment building, where they bounced off before eventually finding a patch of air to explode in.

There you have it: a foreigner's semi-conscious account of the festivities of a holiday he doesn't fully understand. If that's not classic travel blog material, I don't know what is.