Lola at La Guacherna

I have seen impressive videos of La Guacherna in Barranquilla. It reminds me of that night when the guitarists from La Arenosa arrived with Lola's lover at Callejón de los Besos. Pausing their boleros, they performed carnival songs like ‘Te olvidé’ and ‘el Patuleco’. Milly y Los Vecinos had not yet recorded Estercita Forero's ‘La Guacherna’, an extraordinary merengue, a total madness in today's carnivals. Lola used to say that just repeating that one song was enough to dance all night. That's what she did when, during a visit to Barranquilla in 1982, she arrived escaping from Rome. Her lover, hospitalized in Italy for a delayed circumcision, cried in pain like a newborn. He was only cheered up by the thought that Lola was going to claim a huge inheritance, and he dreamed of enjoying that substantial fortune. Lola, feeling invisible, let loose at La Guacherna. She danced very closely and drank until dawn.