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The sudden, stinging pain in my eyes was the only thing piercing the suffocating darkness. Had I just been attacked with acid? Wait, are they laughing? While the pungent darkness, unexpected icy splash to my face, and biting pain had momentarily paralyzed me with panic and confusion they had also parted the “niebla de vino,” or wine haze in my head allowing me to start to grasp the situation. With the lights flickering back on and the world around me rebooting back to life I felt an enormous hand swallow the back of my neck while a musty wine skin was shoved in my face. A booming voice, somehow even stronger than his grip advised me that it was better to drink the wine this time around as opposed to washing my face with it. “Americano, se bebe el vino, no se lava la cara!” as he and everyone around me exploded into backbreaking laughter. I too had to crack an embarrassed smile at it all now. Heck, even the salt-cured pig's head hanging from the rafter above me was smiling. Xavier, my new friend or perhaps more accurately “torturer,” instructed me on how to point my head towards the sky, extend the wine skin at arm’s length and squeeze a steady, arcing, arrow of local Monterrei wine at face, this time being sure to make a direct strike on my tonsils instead of my eyes. He and his cousin Yago tried to contain their laughter while explaining to me that it was a family tradition to play pranks on the other villagers who visited their basement wine “bodega”. They would plunge the dungeon-like stone basement into total darkness and then fling wine everywhere. All of the locals of course, knew to close their eyes and cover their faces. Naturally, only “guiris” or foreigners, along with the occasional drunken local were ever surprised by the prank. Glancing around I noticed that only I had crimson tears dripping down my face. It then dawned on me that I had to be the only one of the two-hundred or so costume-clad revelers celebrating Oimbra’s Carnaval who hadn’t been born there. It was pure coincidence that I had even ended up here in this tiny town tucked into a forgotten corner of Spain’s northwestern Galician region, so close to Portugal in fact, that my phone thought I was over the border. While hitchhiking earlier that day to the more famous and touristic Carnaval celebration in nearby Verin, I had been given a lift and graciously offered a place to sleep. Unbeknownst to me it would end up being the most unexpected yet unforgettable “fiesta” of my life.