Carnival in La Paz
February 21, 2023
Between the 16th and 21st of February it was Carnival in La Paz. Before the preparation along the Malecon began, we didn’t even know that La Paz celebrated Carnival, but apparently it is actually the longest running celebration of Carnival in Mexico, and the people of La Paz take it quite seriously. It was a six-day celebration that completely transformed the Malecon, which is the road that runs along the waterfront.
Brightly coloured, small circus-tent-like
structures lined the roadway, making the whole strip look very colourful from
the water.
Four main stages were
assembled, and each night a variety of bands and performers played until 2am;
it was incredibly loud. Of course noise
travels very well over open water, so we could easily hear each stage from our
boat. The few times that only one stage
was playing, we could hear it so clearly that it sounded like we were seated in
the front row. Unfortunately, the rest
of the time, with four performances blasting their music, all we heard was a
chaotic, loud jumble of sounds that kept us awake on a couple of
occasions. We always sleep with a fan
running, so the white noise from the fan helped to cancel out the racket, and
so thankfully we were usually able to get a decent night's sleep. We heard from several other cruisers that
they lost a lot of sleep during those six nights. 
What we could see of the Malecon from the
water had been completely transformed into a colourful causeway in the
daylight, and bright and colourful lights at night. We looked forward to going in and
exploring.
On the last day, Tuesday, we
headed in, and we were particularly looking forward to trying out some of the
street food. 
However, we ended up only getting
to try the food from two of the vendors because we had not given ourselves
enough time to wander before it was time for the parade. The food that we did have was delicious. 
We had a pork brochetas, which were large
chunks of meat barbecued on a stick. We
also had huaraches, which apparently is a very traditional dish, and it was
quite delicious. 
We attended the Carnival
with two of our friends. One of them is
a lovely lady who has an electric scooter because her knees are bad. 
Falcon got to have the best seat at the
Carnival riding around on her knee while she drove the scooter. 
It was so cute to see him, wide-eyed and so
curious, looking around at everything and everyone. He had the best view possible. 
Within the last couple of weeks Falcon has
gone from being quite content being held face in to one's chest, to wanting to
be able to look around. Now, if he is
awake and alert he always wants to be held facing outwards so that he can look
around. The carnival worked perfectly for
that, as there was so much for him to see.
To watch the parade we took a table at a restaurant right along side of
the road, front row seats, and I enjoyed a drink of rice horchata. 
but as it progressed, the
volume of the music got louder and louder. Finally, a double-long, double-high semi-truck trailer came along with
the bottom level filled with drum sets, while the top deck had the base players,
and they had the volume cranked high. 
It
was too much, too loud, so unfortunately we ducked out, cut away from the
parade by a block and made our way home.
It had been great fun, but next time we would definitely come prepared
with good ear protection for Falcon and ourselves.
At exactly ten weeks old Falcon had gotten to
enjoy his very first Carnival, first parade, and all in his hometown of La
Paz.
I attended this lavish parade maybe 6 years ago - so much fun, but oh, were my feet tired at the end of the night! I should have been as lucky as Falcon to have a front row seat :-) Thanks for sharing the wonderful photos.
ReplyDeleteSuch beautiful bright colours, no wonder Falcon enjoyed his view.
ReplyDelete