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Home Countries Panama

Carnaval In Panama: The Country’s Biggest Event Of The Year

Kathleen Peddicord by Kathleen Peddicord
Feb 11, 2018
in Panama, Travel
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Carnaval In Panama
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Lief and I spent the first month of this New Year on the move….

We traveled from France to Spain to Belize to Colombia to, last week, Panama…

Where we’re settling in for an extended stay. We’ll be working here in our Live and Invest Overseas HQ for the next two months.

We’re delighted, of course, to be back in our Panama City home…

Alas, the timing for this visit coincides with the one season in this country that Lief and I ordinarily avoid:

Los Carnavales.

Panama doesn’t celebrate Carnival… it celebrates multiples Carnavales… in key spots across the country from Las Tablas to Penonomé.

For Panamanians, it’s the most anticipated date on the calendar.

In truth, in all these past 10 years that we’ve been full-time residents of this country, Lief and I have never actually experienced the event.

As I said, we’ve often scheduled travel outside the country to coincide with Carnaval week. These are four or five days I’ve been very happy to avoid.

Our first driver in Panama, Alberto, was the first to try to explain to me the importance of Carnaval in this country.

“A Panamanian family will save all year for their Carnaval celebrations,” he told me.

“If Carnaval comes and they realize they don’t have enough for the party they want, they’ll sell whatever they can think of to raise more money. I’ve known people who have sold their refrigerators so they had more cash for Carnaval,” Alberto continued.

“What are you going to do after Carnaval is over?” I’ve asked them.

“They’ve just laughed. Who cares, right? Nothing gets between a Panamanian and his Carnaval…”

A Panamanian web designer who worked for me years ago put it this way:

“In November, we have our independence days,” he said.

“Then in December is Christmas,” he continued.

“That’s all just the lead up to Carnaval. Carnaval is the most important event of the year.”

Indeed.

Businesses close, and everyone takes off work. Do not come to Panama during Carnaval and expect to do anything but join the party.

Panama City is deserted, as everyone heads to the beach and small towns in the interior known for their Carnaval fiestas.

Panama’s most famous Carnaval is staged in Las Tablas, in the province of Los Santos. Las Tablas’ usual population of about 10,000 increases 10-fold over Carnaval week. The small town is literally awash with revelers who rent houses, rent rooms, even rent driveways and back patios. If they’re unable to organize a place to crash, they sleep where they fall.

Many don’t sleep at all. The streets of Las Tablas are bursting, bouncing, banging with drinking, singing, dancing partiers 24 hours a day for four days running. Music booms, fireworks explode, and men atop the culecos (water trucks) use fire hoses to spray down the entire scene with water from time to time.

Children buy confetti from street vendors and toss it at passers-by. They come armed with water guns and aim and fire at will. Note that the liquid in these water pistols is not always water. It pays to keep your mouth closed when walking through a crowd of Carnaval kids with water guns.

And make sure your valuables are stored in a waterproof bag. Otherwise, your passport could end up looking like it went through a cycle in the washing machine.

Sounds like fun, right?

Lief and I will be hunkered down at home.

If you’re also here in Panama this week and considering venturing out to experience the biggest party of the year, our Panama editors have prepared a Carnaval Survival Guide. Here’s everything you need to know to have a wild and crazy time… and live to tell the tale.

Take a look.

Kathleen Peddicord

Tags: carnavalfestivalslas tablasPanamaPenonome
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Kathleen Peddicord

Kathleen Peddicord

Kathleen Peddicord has covered the live, retire, and do business overseas beat for more than 30 years and is considered the world's foremost authority on these subjects. She has traveled to more than 75 countries, invested in real estate in 21, established businesses in 7, renovated historic properties in 6, and educated her children in 4.

Kathleen has moved children, staff, enterprises, household goods, and pets across three continents, from the East Coast of the United States to Waterford, Ireland... then to Paris, France... next to Panama City, where she has based her Live and Invest Overseas business. Most recently, Kathleen and her husband Lief Simon are dividing their time between Panama and Paris.

Kathleen was a partner with Agora Publishing’s International Living group for 23 years. In that capacity, she opened her first office overseas, in Waterford, Ireland, where she managed a staff of up to 30 employees for more than 10 years. Kathleen also opened, staffed, and operated International Living publishing and real estate marketing offices in Panama City, Panama; Granada, Nicaragua; Roatan, Honduras; San Miguel de Allende, Mexico; Quito, Ecuador; and Paris, France.

Kathleen moved on from her role with Agora in 2007 and launched her Live and Invest Overseas group in 2008. In the years since, she has built Live and Invest Overseas into a successful, recognized, and respected multi-million-dollar business that employs a staff of 35 in Panama City and dozens of writers and other resources around the world.

Kathleen has been quoted by The New York Times, Money magazine, MSNBC, Yahoo Finance, the AARP, and beyond. She has appeared often on radio and television (including Bloomberg and CNBC) and speaks regularly on topics to do with living, retiring, investing, and doing business around the world.

In addition to her own daily e-letter, the Overseas Opportunity Letter, with a circulation of more than 300,000 readers, Kathleen writes regularly for U.S. News & World Report and Forbes.

Her newest book, "How to Retire Overseas: Everything You Need to Know to Live Well (for Less) Abroad," published by Penguin Random House, is the culmination of decades of personal experience living and investing around the world.

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