Bocas Day Parade

Yesterday was Bocas Day, the town's biggest celebration of the year. We landed ashore at 10:00 am to find the main street closed to vehicles and covered with people. Up at the usually quiet Golden Grill (our internet cafe) we found it crowded with lots of locals and an unusual number of
Gringos (like us) all here for Bocas Day.
As a prelude to the day, across the street in the park drummers from rival bands were holding an informal drum-fest. The one style seems to be LOUD! The din was unbelievable. People milled the streets, checking out the many craft stalls set up wherever space allowed. The official
reviewing stand remained empty.
Then we heard the first of the parade about 11:00 am, an hour late. First marching down one street then back up the next were all of Bocas' town officials, all in official dress and with banners and flags waving high. At the reviewing stand they solemnly climbed up and began the process of
saluting the delegates following who represented the many other towns and communities in the Bocas district. Then the bands started. We estimated thirty bands, most consisting only of drums, but a few with some musical instruments. Each was preceded by a group of majorettes and
followed by a gymnastics group. We think they were all from different schools. Ages ranged from pre-schoolers to high teens, some in snazzy marching outfits, some in traditional garb, but all working hard in the hot sun. As each group reached the reviewing stand, the official end of the
parade, they would halt and put on their finest show, batons twirling and flying, drums drumming madly and gymnasts tumbling on the hot pavement. So the parade became a start/stop event. But the drummers never stopped. Some times the drum corps, each with their own beats were no
more than 100' apart, so thet the majorettes and gymnasts had no idea whose tempo to march to. We watched through lunch, then again after lunch until about 3:30 pm when we had had it in the hot sun. Back at the boat the drumming drifted clearly over the water while we swam in the
late afternoon to cool off. By dinner time it appeared that the parade had finally wound down, but by seven in the evening they were off again, with drums crashing and the few bugles blasting their hardest to be heard over the drums. By 10:00 pm things finally wrapped up with a brief display
of fireworks. Today is clean-up day, I hope. The litter is everywhere. Some shop owners are obviously trying to clean up, but it's not a high priority at the best of times, so there's a lot of trash to remember the day by.
All in all, a really fun and impressive show. We estimate at least 1500 drums in 30 bands and an equal number of majorette corps together with naval officials, native groups and lots of street hawkers. Another thing we noticed is how multi-racial the parade was with Afro-descent, Chinese,
Native and Spanish cultures all blending together. The few cruisers and tourist gringos (like us) were very much the exception.
And more exciting news about my part... the distributor in Panama City has it! So it should arrive by plane here some time today... or tomorrow. But in any case we should be away in a day or two... two weeks behind on our non-schedule. But just to see the parade may have been worth the
wait!
I have added a new gallery for pics of the parade.