Halloween in Medellin

 

So one thing I have wanted to do for years is celebrate the holiday season in another country.  This year, I finally did it.

I spent Halloween, Christmas, and New Years in Medellin, Colombia.  For Thanksgiving I was in Santiago, Chile at the Che Lagarto Hostel doing nothing…which is awesome, because I think Thanksgiving is a stupid and pointless as Valentine’s Day (another holiday I am so happy where I will be in a country where it is not celebrated).

But I love Halloween, New Years and Christmas.  And this year I happened to spend all 3 with my friend in his neighborhood in Medellin…where I don’t think I’ve ever seen another non-Colombian person.

Halloween I didn’t dress up.  Turns out, in Medellin people will just throw on a wig, a skirt, maybe funny glasses and when you ask them what they are the most usual answer is “I don’t know”. 

WHAT?

I’m from Boston..where we start planning our Halloween costumes on November 1rst.

But due to backpacking and lack of money I didn’t dress up.  However, I totally thought it relevant to spend even more money on buying pumpkins and de-virginizing my friend from the world of Jack O’Lantern carving.

Carving Pumpkins. Medellin, Colombia

D’s first Jack O’Lantern. Getting stabby on the pumpkin.

 

(see how psycho this kid gets when he gets to get all stabby)

I actually started off by showing him one of the most amazing, um, ‘pumpkin carving’ videos on YouTube.

(ok, so I actually love it cause it also showed him how we talk in Boston too).

And I found a badass website with cool FREE stencils that could please any sick, twisted, noob to pumpkin carving…. EXTREMEPUMPKINS.COM 

I bought a few pumpkins…2 big (one for each) and 3 smaller ones…cause why stop at one boring pumpkin on your first pumpkin carving trip?

I took one big and one small to attempt to make a ‘Parasitic Twin Head’ pumpkin.  It sorta worked till I broke the jaw of the big head.

I gave my friend the other 3 pumpkins and he proceeded to go to town carving the most amazing noob pumpkins ever.   What can I say, this kid has some scary knife-skills.

IMG_8452 (getting way to happy about stabbing shit)

IMG_8507(going to town on the tiny, and much harder to carve pumpkin)

 

So it also turns out that Medellin has these “I’m-Not-Gonna-Light”  candles that I awesomely bought and we had wicked trouble getting all the pumpkins to stay lite at once.

So what to do?  

Start throwing massive amounts of paper into the pumpkin skulls! 

Oh yes, we had flaming pumpkin skulls o’ glory

IMG_8567 (D’s flaming pumpkin head)

 

IMG_8598 (My pumpkin getting all Flame-On)….

 

Oh yes, we set them up in formations too.

IMG_8605 (My friend’s pumpkins..yes he DID carve the little ones into Comedy and Tragedy faces …without a stencil!)

 

IMG_8649  (The necessary ‘posing with the pumpkins’ photos.) 

 

IMG_8661  (I’m starting to think he likes his pumpkins a little too much now.  I think I may have started something bad…)

 

IMG_8674

The pumpkins started going out little by little (the front one in the middle is actually the parasitic twin of the larger head right behind it…but it kept falling out cause the ‘teacher’ (me) had an awesome pumpkin fail and broke the jaw of the big head trying to jam the little head into the side of it)

By the end, just the 2 big heads were lite.  We stayed up watching them for like an hour or two, taking bets on whose would go out first.  And guess who won?

NEITHER OF US!

Stupid pumpkins got sick of hearing us rag on each other I guess because they , no joke, went out at the EXACT SAME TIME!  

So anticlimactic.

But yes, that was Halloween In Medellin.  Guess I’ll have to do another post about Christmas and New Years.

CHEERS!…..

..but wait…

…what?…

…there’s more?…

 

OH YES…THE AFTERMATH!!!!!

(these photos were taken 5 days later by D)

littlepumpkinaftermath(love how creepy the little happy one looks)

 

diegopumpkinaftermath(yup, D’s pumpkin still looks like its going to steal my soul)

 

mypumpkinaftermath(and my pumpkin…you can see where the parasitic twin head ripped through its skull.)

MMMMMMM..oozing rotting pumpkin heads

 

Now stop playing on the computer and go get some lunch.

CHEERS!