Hipicas de Diriamba

A few weekends ago Ivan, Ali (Ivan's friend), Augusto (our neighbor) and I went to Diriamba for the Hipics. The town is famous for this festival which takes place in Managua in August. Ivan and I did not go to the one in Managua because it was just too crowded.

The Hipics is basically a big horse parade and a bunch of people that have pretty horses come and march them down the street. The horses look like they are dancing to the loud music that is playing on every corner, it is amusing and nice to see big, healthy horses here! i have gotten used to seeing the small, sad skinny ones that don't have a healthy, shiny coat.

I had never been to Diriamba before and I really liked it. It looks like a small Leon, only cooler temperature wise. There are lots of houses painted in bright colors and I found myself obsessed with taking photos of the houses with cars or people wearing the same color in front of them. I played around with lots of different functions of my camera, but none seemed to capture the colors as vividly as they really were.

We had a front row spot to view the parade, but it was a little scary at times. Some of the horses march to the side and seem to be out of control, while other horses march straight. Ali said it depends on their breed. There were a few times when we had to get out of the way very quickly. Ivan could not believe that I had never seen horses march. I said, I don't think they do that in the States...but I could be wrong. I never considered myself a big horse person, but I grew up in the country and have been around a lot of horses. So check out the pictures and videos below and horse people, let me know if this is strange to you or not.