Feb 9-12, Saturday-Tuesday, 2013, Mazatlan, Carnival

This is supposed to be the second or third largest carnival in the world.  I am not sure how you measure the size of Carnival.  Number of events?  Length of parade?  Number of people on the streets?  I have never made it to Mardi Gras or Rio but this was definitely a home town, family oriented, low key event, and a lot of fun.

The first event we want to go to is the mock navel battle and fireworks.  While we were hanging out in the bar last night, we met an man who invited us to come watch the fireworks from his house on top of the hill.  We set off about 8:00 to walk up the hill to his house.  He is an American married to a Mexican woman who lives here full time now.  The fireworks are scheduled for 10pm and over the course of the next 2 hours more and more people show up until the rooftop patio is bursting.  Some are Americans and some are Mexicans.  There is a lively mix of conversation fueled by a wonderful mango tequila punch.  We can see the main part of town down below where the crowds are enjoying themselves.  Eventually about 10:30 the fireworks are set off from boats out in the bay, echoed by more fireworks from the shore. We finally headed back down the hill to our boat around midnight.

Next day the parade was supposed to start at 6:00 up at the other end of the Malecon.  It would go from there away from town toward all the hotels in the golden zone.  We had not actually gone that far yet, so I figured we should head out early to get a good spot.  Up over the hill we went and down into town.  As we got to the main street we saw that there were tall fences blocking access but at this early hour they were open and we went right through.  Pacifico beer is one of the main employers in town and a major sponsor of Carnival and the entire street was lined with beer tents.   Pacifico also  kindly provided free toilets every few blocks.  They looked like shipping containers but seemed to be made from packing crates with actual flush toilets inside.  In addition to the beer tents, there were food stands and almost a dozen large sound stages.  Alan, always the AV guy, was very put out by the fact that the speakers were facing directly at the cliff.  He said that the feedback would be horrible.  I figured they wanted it to be as loud as possible.  The other choice would be to put them against the cliff, facing the ocean.  If they did that they would lose sound. 

 Surprisingly, the street was almost empty.  We wandered on along the Malecon for a couple of miles.  Finally the we hit the tail end of the staging area and the beginning of the spectator crowds.  The floats were all large flatbeds pulled by tractors.  They were decorated with paper mache’ to represent movies with the requisite pretty girls riding on top.  At this moment, there were surrounded by milling groups of excited teenagers in short skirts or tight pants with lots of makeup and sparkles.  Across the street I saw horse trailers pulling up and I cold hear a band rehearsing.   So we wandered on past float after float through increasingly dense crowds.  We saw floats for Toy Story, Avatar, Ben Hur, Cleopatra, Alice in Wonderland among others. .  Eventually we came to the head of the floats and wriggled our way into a good viewing spot.  Now the waiting started.  A handful of vendors worked the crowd, selling cotton candy and noise makers.  People wandered along greeting friends.  Kids ran around full of the excitement of the night.  The sun set over the ocean behind us in a spectacular blaze of orange.  Police cars blew their sirens and the officers tried to get people to move back.  A military helicopter flew low along the beach behind us.  Alan said that he counted 4 different law enforcement agencies. 

Finally, finally only about 1/2 hours late the parade moved out.   The first 2 floats were Pacifico Brewery, official sponsor of the parade topped with very sexy, barely dressed dancers, bumping and grinding to the sounds of loud music.  They were followed by a band, which turned out to be the only band in the parade, out of tune and out of step but enthusiastic.  After that came a drill team and then the first theme float.  This turned out to be the pattern of the parade, a group of about 100 young people representing one of the dance studios or social clubs in town, dancing and prancing to loud music followed by their float.  Every float had its own sound system with several sound guys running along side twiddling or tweaking to keep it playing as loud as possible.  Sometimes the dancers had their own sound system playing music different from the music on their float.  How they could tell which music they were supposed to be dancing to, I have no idea but it did not seem to make a lot of difference since the movements were only loosely connected to any music as far as I cold tell.  Everyone seemed to do their own thing anyway, with lots of waving to the crowd, occasionally leaving the group to come and talk to friends or fix their costume.


About half way through the parade we decided to walk back towards the end of it.  It was moving very slowly and the noise of the music was wearing me out.  Remember, we were standing at the beginning of the parade, so logically as we moved back toward the end there would be fewer and fewer people.  Anyone who was standing further towards the end would have missed lots of the floats.  Surprisingly, the crowds did not thin out.  They were just as thick when we reached the last float as they had been at the beginning.  These people had been sitting watching the same float for 3 hours.  I don’t get it.   After the last float came the horses, only a few but beautiful and well mannered.  The parade was barely moving at this point and children were rushing out to have their pictures taken with the horses.  Several times parents lifted toddlers up to sit on a horse for a picture.

With the end of the parade the crowds did thin out and we began the long walk back to the boat.  We had not eaten yet so the first priority was food.  Luckily there were lots of food booths.  We chose 5 tacos for 30 pesos ($3) for our first course, with Pacifico from the stand across the street.  Wandering on, beer in hand, we next tried vampiras, sort of a cross between a pizza and a taco.  I was intrigued by the huarachas which were sort of the same but shaped like the sole of a sandal but the little lady who ran the food stand convinced Alan that vampiras were better.  Finally we got chirros filled with chocolate syrup.  As we came around the final corner to the main part of town where the stages were, we were suddenly confronted by the fences that we had ignored on our way down.  Now they were manned by uniformed officers.  Men were to go on one side and women on the other for a security check and we were also supposed to have a ticket. In my best, or worst, Spanish, I said that we lived over there and needed to go this way to get home.  I guess we looked so bewildered that they took pity and let us through.  This part of town was really deserted, after it was not even 10:00, early for the Mexicans.  We walked on along the beach and over the hill and back to the Club where our dingy was waiting for us. 

Tuesday was the second parade.  This one was supposed to start at 4:00 someplace up by the new hotels and come south all the way into the old part of town.  I had not been able to find out if it was going to be the same parade or something different but we were going to go anyway.  After a late lunch, we headed up over the hill and into town again.  Once again the security fences and guards.  This time we had to buy tickets to get in but they were only a few dollars.   Once again, men were sent to one side of the street to enter and women to the other.  We still have not figured that out.  There were more people at this end of town than before but it was still fairly quiet.  Same sound stages, food stands, beer tents and souvenir vendors.  Lots of families with kids running around.  After walking around for a while, we found a convenient wall and settled down to wait for the parade.  And we waited and waited and waited. Since we had such a good spot, we did not want to leave so we sat and played spot the Americans.  Almost any one here would not be out of place in an American city but the Americans themselves stuck out like sore thumbs.  First, they were almost always in couples and always older.  Then there were the shoes, always sensible and almost always ugly, even when not worn with white socks.  Bermuda shorts and baseball caps.  There was the light hair and rosy skin tone.  But there was something else that marked the Americans, something in the attitude, something in the posture.  We have not quite figured out what it is but it is undeniable.

Eventually the parade got to us.  It was the same parade, except that perviously we had been at the beginning of it and this time the kids had all been dancing for several hours and were starting to look a little tired and bedraggled.  The last 3 floats were from Carnival in Rio and featured very professional, beautiful and almost naked dancers but even they had lost a lot of their jiggle and bounce.  But it was still fun.

Once the parade was over we loaded up on beer and street food and wandered along.  By now it was 10pm and time for the bands to start.  Unfortunately each one had the volume cranked up as loud as it would go and with so many bands so close together it was impossible to enjoy any one of them.  We found a different route home around the back side of the hill that was not so steep, very quiet and deserted and peaceful.