Even the moon looks pale tonight, casting a faint light on the cobble stone streets. From the old port, a thick fog descends into vieux ville. Grimacing pumpkins with flickering candles stand silent guard on windowsills and doorways.

What is that noise? It sounds like somber drums, and they are coming closer. Ghoulish shadows appear from the dark. Now I can see lanterns, held by sinister figures with white masks, clad in long cowls. There are dancing skeletons with red glowing eyes and fiddling devils. A marching band of grinning zombies comes next, followed by a group of anemic pallbearers carrying a lifeless creature, covered with a white sheet. This is a funeral procession for the living dead! A vampire with blood still dripping from his luscious lips reaches out for me and tries to pull me along. I duck away at the last moment, but there is nowhere to hide in these narrow streets. Fear creeps up my spine like a million spiders, but eventually the monstrous parade passes by, leaving me still in one piece.

These haunted streets are not for the faint of heart, at least during the last nights in October. For this northern metropolis sure knows how to party ― there are lavish festivals almost every weekend, honoring jazz, theatre and comedy. Even the winter snow is reason enough to celebrate.

“La Grande Mascarade” with tonight’s frightful funeral procession, costume balls and many morbid happenings centered around a public square, is the newest four-day production in a grand line of annual city spectacles. And when you love a scary good time, this is the place to join a bizarre array of ghosts, monsters and other recently exhumed creatures for Halloween.

Where am I?

Send your answer to goworld@goworldpublishing.com. All readers correctly identifying this city and country will be entered in a drawing to receive a recently published travel book.

Parque del Amor in the Miraflores neighborhood of Lima, Peru

Answer to the September
“Where in the World” Contest

Last month’s mystery destination was Lima, Peru. Our picture showed Parque del Amor in the Miraflores neighborhood.

Thanks to all who wrote in with their guesses. Last month’s winner was Emilia of Kirkland, Washington, USA. Congratulations, Emilia!