February 23, 2009

Today started off as usual with breakfast then we headed to El Banko para Dinerio.(to the bank for money). The rest of the day was spent walking around Plaza Grande shopping. Because of Carnaval there are many vendors.

The big event for today was Carnaval. Yesterday when we were in Progress we talked with this guy (Tomas) who pegged us right away as tourists. He was telling us that Carnaval in Merida was the 3rd largest celebration for Carnaval and how he and his family get a table at La Paranda restaurant for the evening and bring beads for bargaining for what is being thrown from the floats. He said he had a couple of open spots if we wanted to join them. So about 5pm Katelyn and I went over to La Paranda and sure enough he and his family and some friends were there. Sure enough they were all wearing massive beads. Now the whole reason we are there is to see how the beads work for bargaining so we had to figure out how to get the beads. Tomas informed us that his mom brings the over from the states and we’d have to ask his mom for them. We were willing to purchase them from her if needed to join in the experience but when Katelyn asked her about them she gave her two packages. Now we were in the game .

Before the parade started, clowns came out to entertain the crowd with their antics. They were jumping over each other, and generally just…well…clowning around. Luis and Tomas weren’t about to be left out of the game, however, and they started interacting with the crowd, too. They threw beads into the bleachers, and then started a contest based on where you were sitting for which side could be the loudest before throwing another set into the stands.

With all those antics, the parade seemed to get underway pretty quickly. Soon there were traditional garbed flocks of people marching down the street. Little girls and boys mixed in with the grandmothers. Beads were doled out readily to cute faces.

And then came the Corona/Sol girls. Beads were thrown. There were attempts at bargaining for t-shirts. We did actually manage to get one which was fantastic, though there was some serious reluctance to part with the t-shirts on the side of some of the float-riders. Something almost equally as spectacular is I did get to give beads to the Joker.

At the end of the evening, everyone meandered down to Pasejo Montejo for some band-action. Luis was leading us to the stage where his band was supposed to play, but instead there were two fat guys “singing” which generally involved more talking than singing. We waited for a while to see if things were going to get changed up, and eventually some choreographed dancers came on the scene but there still wasn’t any real music for dancing and stuff. But it was around one when we got to the hotel, anyway.

I’d like to point out that I did manage to stay up past Mom. She conked out pretty quickly when we got back. I needed to digest a little more caffeine before I could hit the hay.

It was pretty much fantastic the whole thing: definitely well worth the change in plans that we kept making throughout the day for what we were going to do. =)

I also have a link for you all for pictures on facebook. I apologize if some of them are a little dark, but hey, what can you do? it's night time, hehe:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2027664&id=47802150&l=6ae0f

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2027671&id=47802150&l=d589a

Cheers & Love ~ Kate and Sunny