Today the long time announced carnival took place in the streets of Valparaíso. Under the name of Mil Tambores - A thousand drummers a procession of what I guess more than ten thousand people danced and sung their way through the streets.

We started at the Plaza Sotomayor, which is just beneath the hill where I live. The carnival had already started and I have no idea whether what we saw was the beginning or the middle, but we watched the dancers, musicians and artists pass us.

The carnival seemed very organized and the groups must have been practicing for weeks up to the event. Some artists performed circus like tricks with juggles and one-wheel bikes while others performed gymnastic moves and jumps. Then there were dancers of every kind, small groups of kids masqueraded and Peruvians presenting folkloric dances.

Every third or fourth group were drummers setting the beat and giving the dancers a rhythm. The drumming groups always had a leader with a whistle and one was even lead by a truck with speakers on top, so you could hear the women singing to the beat.

I am overwhelmed and very impressed by the colorful and expressive costumes and the entire organization of the event. There were groups and clubs of every kind, some representing a country, others representing statements and criticism but most people were there just for fun.

After a while, when the end had almost reached us, we tried to head for the beginning but never arrived there, as we at some point joined in on the carnival and started to move along and dance behind a group of drummers together with a lot of other people enjoying a good time.

At one point a lot later the carnival kind of dissolved and we headed for dinner. On our way back the direction we came from and I was really surprised but on a friday night around nine o'clock they had already started to clean up the streets after the carnival. The next day you almost couldn't tell, that the streets the day before had been filled with thousands of partying people.

It was really fun to be a part of this cultural event and I think we got a good preview of what happens on a big scale in Rio de Janeiro every Year.