Passion for Panama’s Carnival in Las Tablas

“Culeco” in Las Tablas.

Day 140 Saturday (Sabado) Playa Blanca

“Calle Arriba soy”

By Jacob Ehrler (Courtesy of El Visitante)

Panamanians get passionate about Carnival, and even more so if they are the Las Tablas Carnival type. The 100,000 people who will flock to Panama’s largest Carnival in the little countryside town of Las Tablas in the Los Santos province are all serious partiers. Nowhere in Panama will there be more music, jumping, dancing and debauchery over the next four days except in and around Parque Porras at the center of town.
But there are also great differences as one delves deeper into the Carnival tradition in Las Tablas. This Carnival is so great because two rival groups engage in an age-old tradition of rivalry to produce a bigger and better Carnival show than the other. Calle Arriba first marched out from their side of the church in town over 50 years ago. Calle Abajo joined in to compete the following year and no side has lowered arms since, at least not during the four days of Carnival.
Las Tablas resident Alina de la Vega, who recently moved to her mother’s homeland after living the first 30-odd years of her life in Miami, explains that “Marriages in Las Tablas actually break up during Carnival, families split. It’s no joke, we people in this town take the Carnival very seriously.” It’s like when a husband and wife have to endure that their favorite and opposing rival teams play a yearly match - except that it last four days and involves ten times as much drinking.

Calle Arriba queen pokes fun at Calle Abajo

We are not sure why Calle Arriba 2012 Carnival Queen Olga Elizabeth Trejos Barahona is holding a pair of handcuffs in this photo snapped during the New Year celebration in Las Tablas. But we are sure she is showing them to her Calle Abajo opponents, certainly allusive to a rumor she’s heard about how someone from the other side has been behaving.

The passion behind the Carnival in Las Tablas permits the “tunas,” or groups of Carnival revelers who support their particular queen, to really let it all out. As the decorative floats, surrounded by a sea of supporters passes in front of a balcony that belongs to the opposing “Calle,” the outbursts can be beyond colorful.
And when it’s over, it’s over. Come Wednesday morning, all goes back to normal, but not before each side gets to let off a lot of steam that has been building up over the last few months. Neighbors can speak again, though neither would think to admit that the other side had beat them out.