To the Interior: Candombe in Salto and Artigas

There's still a lot of space in Uruguay. It continues to be something I enjoy seeing after living in Montevideo for the past seven and a half months. Space also means it takes some time to get where you're going, and that means bus rides. These aren't so bad, but since sleep is hard to come by on these travels, it would be nice to take them during the day when I could actually see the changing landscape.

This past Saturday (2/18), at 1:00AM, I left with Mundo Afro for a whirlwind trip to the departments of Salto and Artigas. They were taking a group of candombe musicians and dancers to participate in carnival parades in both cities.

The trip was exhausting, though fun. Part of the exhaustion came from the heat, not something I'm normally one to complain about, since I hate being cold. But these two cities were different. It was crazy hot. I have no words to truly describe the heat, but I spent much more than I had planned just buying water, and still came back to Montevideo a little dehydrated. But enough complaining...

 

I had hoped to have a chance to visit Salto since I first began studying Uruguay. Mainly because of the termas, geothermal pools. I had the idea it was going to be the South American Iceland. We arrived at the Termas de Dayman, just outside the city of Salto, at around 7:00AM. At this point I had no idea how hot it would get, and with the cool morning air, and after the long bus ride, the heated pools sounded amazing. And honestly, they were. Even as it grew warmer, after a dip in one of the pools, the air felt refreshing.

In general, the termas at Dayman was a fairly relaxing resort: lots of trees, lots of pools, lots of space, and plenty of picnic areas with parrillas (those big grills). The latter is important, since that means food, specifically carnes.

Just outside the resort, on the Dayman river. Seriously, look at the green space!

The rest of Saturday was getting ready for the Llamadas being held in the city of Salto later that night. I spent most of that time just trying to find water. As for the actual event, Mundo Afro was opening the parade, much as they did the Llamadas in Montevideo. Some of the members for the Salto ensemble were the same as those in Montevideo, but there were a lot of changes as well. I was curious to observe how this group would interact. Overall, that too was much the same. It was easy to see (and hear) the groups within the group. I haven't had a chance to compare performances with the group from Montevideo, but I know that it felt different (rhythmically speaking), though this by no means is to say it was better or worse.

As I waited for the parade to start, I wandered around the main square snapping photos:

Catedral de Salto

 Drums belonging to members of Las Cuerdas de Ejido, which featured the names

of important figures in the history of candombe.

Gramillero and Mama Vieja (mini-versions).

And finally, the parade, including my outstanding video of the opening fireworks:

Unfortunately, I was stuck with Mundo Afro's schedule, so I wasn't able to see many of the other groups performing, though I did record a bit of Mamba Negra, a group from Salto that followed Mundo Afro:

Thanks for visiting Salto, from Carlos Gardel
and his little red friend.

We stayed the night in Salto, and by 10:00AM (ish...) we were on the road to Artigas. It was a quiet bus ride, with most everyone trying to catch up on sleep. We arrived somewhere around 1pm (I really have no idea, my sense of time at this point was completely off), and were welcomed by members of Mundo Afro-Artigas. As we waited for lunch, it was clear along the streets that carnival in Artigas is not anything like what happens in Montevideo, as just outside the meeting hall there were floats a la Carnaval Brasileño.

 

As the day went on, I actually overheard a conversation where one of the carnival directors was telling the drummer that he was happy a candombe group was here, but understand, carnival in Artigas is all about samba. This would become very clear later that night. But anyway, here are some videos and photos from our welcome to Artigas lunch:

After lunch, we headed off to La Piedra Pintada, Painted Rock, a park just outside of Artigas. This was basically to keep everyone cool through the day by offering access to a pool. It only works so much; the interior of Uruguay is hot. The concession stand actually was selling Gatorade, but kept telling me they didn't have it, even though I was looking at a bottle. I even said out loud that I was a Gator, it was made for us, so give me my ade. No one understood. It was still a pretty relaxing afternoon. The photos below are all of the Piedra Pintada; it's only one rock:

I swear this was a photo of the candombe group.

And more green space, including some ñandu up close:

I couldn't get them to turn around.

 And the rest was Carnival de Artigas. This was a significant event, as I was told it was the first time a candombe group had performed in the event. So the video of this one is a little longer than most I upload. Most of the photos are of the different floats I was able to see while waiting for things to get started.

Of all the detail on the things, they opted for no words in the book?

The Parade:



Post-Mundo Afro Performance:



Bad video quality, but you can hear and see a little of the finish line of the parade:

By the time I made it to the end of the parade, batteries for both cameras were dying, and I was trying to snap any shot I could before they would auto shut-off. This was also all happening around 3:00AM, and I know Mundo Afro left for Montevideo around 3:30AM. It took me a few days to recover from the trip, but it's been nice sleeping well for a change.