Carnaval - The Parade

To me, the highlight of the carnaval festivities is the parade. Everybody all together, strutting their stuff as one unit. A chance to see the participants and costumes up close and personal. Not always a good thing. As I mentioned earlier though, everybody was just so joyous and happy this year, I couldn't find a single thing I didn't like. So if you are waiting for snarky comments, you won't find many this year. But a few. I just can't help always being the critic!

So let's start the parade.

It was led off this year with the Coca-Cola truck. They build a wall down the center and have participants on both sides of the wall. Truthfully, I hardly even looked at the other side.




Here we are featuring the Jr. Miss Queen and the Jr. Miss Queen wannabe. (told you I couldn't help myself!)





The toucan girls from behind. Those headdresses were fabulous. I got a chance to see them dance also. They were very, very good.

One of the younger units. I love the kids. They are just so enthusiastic.

Remember the girl with the shoulder headdress? I told you to remember her. Well, here she is while the parade is moving. She was so busy waving to the crowd, she totally did not see that palm tree coming up! It almost knocked her off the float.

One of the more popular places for Gringos to view the parade and imbibe at the same time.

You may need to enlarge this one to see what I am talking about. Somebody should have noticed that their placement of jewels was a bit provocative. Or maybe they intended them to be.

A little bit older troupe, but certainly not seniors.

Pink was a favorite color this year.

Like I said, I love the kids. It's hard to get a good picture of them. There are just too many doting parents running around amidst them.

Such grown up costumes for such precious little kids.

Look at the detail on these headdresses.

Although not very precise in their formation, they carried off the costumes with grace.

And who can resist a cutie begging for her picture to be taken! I showed her this picture on the camera and her smile got even bigger!

One of the more poorly designed costumes. It required that these poor girls keep their arms extended in order to show off the costume at it's best. The head gear was great though.

"Do you like this pose best?"

"Or is this one better?"

I'm not sure, but I think this was Carnaval Queen. At the last minute, some cow put her hoof in front of my camera. I finally had to give up my good curb side position to get away from her.

Our Mayor, who spared no expense on dressing for the Carnaval parade. She's the one with the pink boa.

A better view of the Mayor.

This was the second most interesting thing on her float. The other one is in the first picture of her.

As always, the gay boys did an exceptional job with their float and costumes. There's my nemesis, either following me or heading back to the barn. Not sure which.

These girls certainly knew how to shake those tail feathers!

Although not a tremendously large parade this year, they managed to tie up downtown traffic for hours that Saturday afternoon. The important thing was that they had fun. And you know what? So did I!