Beauty queen showdown

Dan: Oooooo weee! It’s hot! It has been in the mid-90s the last few days. Somebody told me it was 38 degrees Celcius today. I was watching the local soccer game on TV and they had people aiming a firehose into the grateful crowd. Luckily we have an air conditioner so no such measures were required here.

This weird wine festival has begun. We could tell by the midnight fireworks we watched in the courtyard. It is also hard to ignore the princess propaganda plastered all over town. I think all summer, each weekend some region in the wine producing area has elected a princess. This week they are all here in the provincial capital for the big no-holds-barred, princess battle royale to celebrate the wine harvest. We see posters for favored candidates in shop windows. There are life-sized cutouts in front of the newspaper building that people walk by and examine. But we’re still trying to figure out what the bulk of this festival is about. It might be about costumed dance performances at the park amphitheater. Also, we’re told that there will be a parade next Friday. This will include “carros alegoricos”, or allegorical cars. I saw them trimming the trees on Avenida San Martin today, so maybe we can expect some tall allegories.

We ran into a side event just around the corner from our hotel. A man was playing guitar and people were dancing. I don’t generally get into big dress-up dance shows, but this was just normal folks, dancing folk-dances on an urban street corner. A few younger people, some older couples in their street clothes dancing cuecas, chacareras and sambas. It was like a link to the past, and a nice change to that one Red Hot Chilli Peppers we’ve been hearing over and over.