Offices got ready even the day before!

Halloween turns out to be the biggest event in Bogotá! Absolutely amazing! The whole city turns itself into a mega fun fair. It’s the ultimate spectacle of the year before the ‘festival of lights‘ begins in November. It was like a carnival! Everyone seems to have left work early and hits the streets in their specially chosen costume & makeup, starting as early as 3pm! I have realized that it was an event that’s even bigger than Christmas in terms of vibrancy and liveliness because Christmas is family time, home time, dinner time, prayers time and private time, whilst Halloween is a street party when everyone goes out to admire each other’s costume and has a good time!

There was literally everything in every category and every kind of legendary icons you can think of. All kids are out with their pumpkin baskets and all facilities are ready with their candies for the kids! Amazing! There was some extremely skilled makeup with gruesome blood. Even those who don’t go full monty come with at least a Bob Marley hood with dreadlocks, a funky jokey Halloween tie, a nice flick of pink eye lashes, catty noses, and the popular Minnie Mouse bows!

Movie characters: of course includes the obvious ones like Superman and Pirates of Caribbean. Also a most life-like Helen Parr from The Incredibles, and lots of Mike Wazowski.

Latin American winners: A kid-version Juan Valdez donkey man and a guy in tight red full body lycra and yellow underwear worn inside out with Teletubbies style antennas. He turns out to be a real character, a legendary Mexican antihero Chapullin!

The traditionals: witches, zombies, ghostly figures, vampires & non-recognizable figures that have purely scary and revolting monstrous faces and hands

Girls: lots of princesses, Snow Whites & Cinderellas (not just the dress but the actual hair that looks like it had come straight out of the movie)

Boys: some real muscly kids out there in Ironman, Spiderman and all sorts of transformers costume!

Toddlers: an entourage of animals and fruits including bulged ass dinosaurs, pandas, tigers and strawberries! (absolutely love the strawberries!)

Pets: An Elmo pug, a Batman English pointer, and princesses of course

The most impressive: a confusingly realistic Mad Hatter

My night ended up at a Brazilian grill that had an appropriately dressed kid, in rodeo theme, as Toy Story Woody, complete with set of boots, a gun and a vest.

The most memorable: Some kind of plastic robot invention in the highly trendy geo-friendly theme. Love the educational aspect of this costume!

Shopper father and son pair at the El Retiro shopping mall.
This was so impressive that I couldn’t resist posting it even with my usual non-appearance policy..