It’s a special week here in Panamá – it’s holiday week! Yesterday, Monday, November 2, was the All Souls’ Day – not an official holiday, but one of three dry days in Panamá every year. You can’t buy alcohol anywhere in the country. Families go to cemeteries to remember their dearly departed loved ones.

However, the next day kicks off a three day celebration of consecutive holidays. November 3rd (today!) is Separation Day, celebrating Panamá’s separation from Colombia in 1903. November 4 is Flag Day, which honors the creation and symbolism of the Panamanian flag. Then finally, November 5 is Colón Day, which celebrates events in Colón that solidified the separation from Colombia. All three days are considered official holidays.

Those three holidays are definitely not dry – in fact, restaurants and bars have special permission to stay open until 6 am!!

The president of Panamá has ordered most celebrations canceled this year because of the recent earthquake. However, the parades were not included in those! Today and tomorrow, parades are happening in two locations – Casco Viejo and along Via España. There are two entirely different parades with different bands and everything. They march one parade route today, and tomorrow they’ll switch and march the other.

We opted to go to the Casco Viejo parade that finishes on Avenida Balboa. We did this primarily because we thought it might be easier to Uber there, and there might be a bit more shade. It was impossible to Uber all the way to Casco, so we opted for something close to the end of the parade route. Avenida Balboa was closed, so we still had to walk about 20 minutes to get to our vantage point near the fish market.

We also learned that parades in Panamá are quite different than those in the U.S., not surprisingly. First, they’re definitely on Panamá time. The parade we attended today was scheduled to start at 9. We got to Avenida Balboa around 10:30, and things were just getting started.

It got started by the police motorcycle team doing manoeuvers around one officer holding a flag. We knew things were getting close!

Then there was this dignitary – we don’t know who he is, but with many other units in the parade, we were impressed that senior leaders were out in force.

The parade description had boasted the number of bands and colour guards that would be present. What we didn’t understand is that the parade is almost ALL bands and colour guards! Not a single float to be seen. No equestrian units, and no groups of people walking just because.

Just about every unit was a band, and I think the parade on Ruta 1 today (Casco Viejo) was dedicated to some government bands, but mostly schools.

Even saying “band” is a little generic. Every organization/school had an entry that included several parts.

First, there would be an honour guard, and someone holding a flag.

The honour guard usually had a drill they would go through. We were fortunately located at a spot where all of the bands would stop and perform. We also heard that the parades last all day. Now we understood why! Almost every unit of every band had a performance. So, unlike in the US where a band marches by and you see them for maybe five minutes, we saw every band for at least 10-15 minutes or more.

After the honour guard, there usually would be dancers dressed in traditional clothing.

Then, you would likely see the band itself! Some were full bands, and some where drum and bugle corps, and some were drums with xylophones. The mix of music from all the bands was fantastic, though special props go to the two bands (one of them a xylophone band) that played Shakira’s Dai Dai from the World Cup.

We were very impressed with the firefighters using axes for their honour guard!

The last part of each unit was the colour guard.

And now I’ll just post a bunch of pictures.

Bands – almost all of these were schools:

Traditional dress:

This group provided music from mouth flutes.

This one was a drill team – but with fans.

Another thing about Panamanian parades – they last a long time! We had been told they last all day and didn’t believe it. We stayed for several hours and the parade was still going strong. In fact, as I type this I’m watching a livestream of Ruta 2 and the parade is STILL going on there, 8+ hours after it started.

Which means, there’s more in store for tomorrow!