I had no idea – even after yesterday’s children’s parade – how big this carnaval thing would get here. I come from a smallish southern German town where Fasnacht, as we call it, is taken fairly seriously: parties, parades, costumes, etc. – I know it all. Then I lived in Düsseldorf for three years and Karneval is nothing if not a big deal there – but this a different order of magnitude as we geeky scientists like to say. The day was fairly quiet, no people in costumes on the street but come 5:30 everybody started to head towards the Paseo Montejo where the parade would come by. Again the vendors of all sorts were out in force, on their tricycles mounted with gas stoves and portable french fries stands (served with lime, what else?)
Max had a good nap in the afternoon and was in a good mood especially since he also got a Marquesita – kind of a sweet waffle filled with cheese (cheese seems to fall squarely into the dessert category here). Again the mood was relaxed, friendly, festive, music blaring everywhere and everybody cool, calm and not a unfriendly word spoken at least as far as I could tell. The whole thing seemed to have been planned like a military operation, I’d say hundreds of police where out making sure people stay behind the ropes and nobody throws him/herself in front of a float. The rest of the time they were chatting and watching the parade. Interestingly when a troup (I am sure that’s not the proper word but I don’t know what to call roughly 2 dozen police officers marching somewhat in lock-step while whispering into each others’ ears) walked by people cheered loudly – and it was a friendly cheer – apparently wanting to show their appreciation for the work the police was doing.
As it got dark suspense was mounting, people were eating, kids running around or if they were to young too run they would crawl, music was playing from three different stages all within half a mile. One police officer wanted to send me behind the ropes but the trick worked again – I held up my camera, looked important and waved my press pass around. Needless to say, I got to stay and was soon running all around shooting away. Perception is everything.
Finally the parade started.
Huge floats, roughly half of them sponsored by Corona, the other half by Sol (beer) with girls in bikinis and guys without shirts accompanied by the now well-known Mayas, Chinese, Indians, Romans, Peruvians, Brazilians, Jordanians and Egyptians came driving down the Paseo. You guessed it, music was blasting and random things like T-shirts, pens, cups, cell phone cases etc. where thrown into the crowds who cheered wildly for every new float. Again it was schools, clubs, associations putting on the show and so we had everything from grade schoolers, to teenagers, young adults, special needs education schools and a few clubs for retired people participating. That actually made the whole thing authentic, these where real people giving their best, not a bunch of hired hotties in bikinis and loin cloths. Again, the costumes were amazing, I daresay not a single peacock between here and the Canadian border has its feather left judging from the number of peacock feather adorned outfits. In Merida they seem to earnestly belief that from the ancient Egyptians to the contemporary Brazilians nobody would possible ever consider putting on any type of outfit without peacock feathers. Well, there was one exception: the Peruvians in their wool hats didn’t sport any peacock feathers.
After almost 1.5 hours of floats and dance and music and pushing that shutter buttom and no end in sight even I grew tired of the glittering lights and the topless hunks. So we had ourselves a taco or two (I’d give almost anything for some decent Sushi by now) another Diet Coke and then – thankfully, the last float floated by and we walked home. Max was hyped from all the music and the lollipop I caught for him so we made it home in one piece. It’s almost 11:00 pm and the music is deafening and no end in sight (in fact it seems to get louder by the minute). I guess tonight I will have to learn to sleep with music blasting like there is no tomorrow.
Here are some examples of the type of flaots and costumes we saw:
