Carnaval in daylight

February 6
Modest breakfast at hotel, then Nevada, Cynthia and I go shopping at the local market that I had skipped to nap yesterday. Left without my camera, but felt naked without it, so returned from the market to the hotel to get it. Here are a few photos from that excursion, which wound up in my purchasing a gaudy carnaval t-shirt, which I think is “definitely me”. 

    
 
And the photography group told me that I needed to do a selfie of the gaudy t-shirt, so here goes. 

 
Prior to going to the big parade, there were folks outside our hotel, getting ready to participate. 

Now for the main attraction — the chaos in all its glory! La Batalla de Flores (or the Battle of the Flowers) showcases the best-decorated and most elaborate display of floats in the parade. Celebrities, musicians, politicians and what seems like half the Caribbean is here to soak up the colors, the music and the costumes. And a few beers, too (a medical necessity because of the heat! 

We participate as best we can, mixing it up with the locals and making images from the grandstands along the parade route. We spend three hours at the parade. While picture taking is difficult, it is far less difficult than last night, so I may have a few decent images. Below is almost a (too large) random sample, as I took probably at least 500 hundred photos and did not have time to look at them.  Several are intentionally blurry in an attempt to convey the sense of motion. 

We head back to our hotel to rest, relax and reload. A big local parade down our street has the street cordoned off. We wind up on the wrong side of the street, so to get to the hotel, we have to walk up a couple blocks and actually walk back in the parade, becoming a bit more a part of carnaval than we’d intended. The plan was to photograph the local parade, but I’m paraded out, so I’m happy to use the time to wash up, blog and relax.

Excellent dinner at Arabe Gourmet, part of the historical component of the area has been the influx of Lebanese…we appreciate their sacrifices (though we could have done with somewhat less of the loud, live carnavalesque music that reverberated for about twenty minutes). Back to the hotel to finish the blog, and pack for tomorrow