February 5th (Carnaval!)
Today was Mardis Gras in Merida, also known as Carnaval. This is the second biggest Carnaval in Mexico, and the fourth or fifth biggest in the world. To me, that's pretty impressive. What's more impressive, however, is what is to follow.
Now, it is a huuuge party, with close to two million people coming from all around to hang out and have a good time. Thats a lot of freakin people.
We woke up kinda late and got to the main street, Paseo Montejo, about half an hour after it started. However, we were close to the very end of it; it stretched 5 kilometers into the very heart of the city, right down the main drag, right past the governors house, the beautiful art museums, restaurants, EVERYTHING... There were probably around 10,000 cops just along the parade route making sure people stayed behind the gates and fences, because there were, quite literally, MILLIONS of people. It was phenomenal.
So we get relegated to a small section where Paseo Montejo is joined by a smaller street, but at this same point, two points of the gigantic parade intersect, so from our vantage point we would have to continuously turn around to see both things passing us. It was cool as hell. At first, the cops wouldn't let anyone even set their foot IN the street, let alone walk around WITH the parade people taking pictures; cue Gigantic Camera with Paleface Operator (me!). I waved my camera and the cops stood back, letting me have the run of the street. Since my head is more or less completely shaved, I stopped a guy walking by a Sol (popular beer) float to see if I could get a hat, and he just gave me one off of his belt. Awesome. Sunscreen, check. Kick ass beer hat from Carnaval, check. I thought that was pretty bad-ass, as my friends were standing on the sidewalk, unable to do anything. I smiled and waved to them as I walked away, but I really just wanted to stick around and take pictures. I filled a 2 gigabyte memory card just as the parade drew to an end, but we didn't wanna go.
An idea arose: how far can this Gigantic Camera get us? Can it actually get us into the street WITH the parade? Well, hell, only one way to find out... We headed toward the line of police walking down the street behind the last float to gain entrance, and one of the cops I had been standing next to pulled his buddy aside so the three of us could get through, keeping back a few thousand other people (sans Gigantic Cameras).
So wow. This is cool. Three white kids walking down the biggest party of the year, with no official passes save my Gigantic Camera. All was well with the cosmos. We were getting louder cheers than even the floats; the girls (and older ladies of Merida) loved us; we would blow kisses and walk up and shake hands and take pictures... I think they thought we were celebrities, which is kinda racist, but hey, it was AMAZING! We walked for about two kilometers before we found our friends Justin and Craig; now we are five. Derek, Jim, Justin, Craig and myself, all walking and laughing at the absurdity of the whole thing. There were bikini clad women on the floats cheering at us, trying to get us to come and dance with them, there were singers on stages lining the streets doing the same.
Little more background information on the innermost workings of Carnaval. There are LARGE stages set up every half-kilometer or so, for the various musical acts that come through. Each one of these stages is set up for a full band, a couple dancers, and the main musical group. Kick ASS! We had a few TV personalities beckoning us up, but we had intent; we wanted to walk the whole of Carnaval. Not only are there massive stages set up everywhere, but there are police towers set up every 500 feet or so, just so the cops can keep an eye on everyone. It's pretty cool.
And here we are, five gringos, walking down the street, kissing hands and shaking babies (as it were) and having a blast. Suddenly the parade stops, just as we're next to the Corona float and dancing girls on the street. They start dancing with Craig and Jim, handing them beers and urging "Todo! Todo!" which is more or less saying "Chug! Chug!" Craig even got interviewed briefly by TV Azteca, which is the major broadcasting network for Mexico. A woman in the Corona Hummer made me come to the window, she seemed pissed; she took off my Sol hat and gave me an Official Corona 2008 Carnaval hat; I was kinda sad cause I liked the Sol one, but it was a normal hat you can buy anywhere. (note: Corona and Sol are like Budweiser and Miller in the States) This hat is the kind of hat you can only get for working for Corona during the Carnaval, so I was pretty stoked.
And we walk more; the floats are extravagant, the costumes as well; everything is absolutely gorgeous and colorful and alive and vibrant!!! It's truly amazing to see... And all in all I took almost a thousand pictures, so... I suppose I have plenty to remember it by.
But we keep walking and keep walking and KEEP walking; we're off Paseo Montejo now and on Calle 60, which leads to the very heart of the city. It's the downtown of Merida; everything is close together, packed in as tight as possible, and today was no exception. There were people lining the streets, hanging from windows, standing on roofs; this makes the Thanksgiving day parade in NYC look paltry in comparison, I kid you not. Dancing was choreographed, for the young and old parade members, and they never missed a beat. Each float had its own flotilla of support crews; water and snacks, sound systems and music, and even power generators for the massive amounts of electricity required by the huge speakers they used.
So we keep walking, and we keep getting cheers, and we keep blowing kisses and making girls faint (not quite, but it was seriously as though we were celebrities) At one point, we passed a major telenovela star signing autographs and half of his crowd turned around to us and started clamoring for pictures. I don't really know what we were doing, so we just kept walking. Aaaaamazing.
The theme of Carnaval is the 7 man-made wonders of the world; Chichen Itza is the Mexican one, then there's Christ the Redeemer in Rio, the Colosseum in Rome, Machu Picchu in Peru, the city of Petra in Jordan, the Great Wall of China, and the Taj Majal in India... All were represented by the variety of floats and costumes. There were beads thrown aplenty (unlike N'Orleans, girls aren't required to show their breasts, although some people do ask for a dance or a kiss on the cheek if they're not on a float) and little goodies thrown out en masse... There were shirts and hats and cell phone holsters and snacks and candy and... Man, it was JUST SO COOL!
So we hung out and kept walking, kept apart from the crowd by simple fences erected during the past two weeks. We started getting closer and closer to the centro when we rounded a float and came face to face with the Queen of Carnaval. This woman was walking in high heels down the brick path with an enormous feathery headdress and costume and blowing kisses and taking pictures and handing out flowers; she had an entire entourage of people with her. She had a water boy, a photographer, people to hand her flowers, people to hand her beads to throw, a make up artist... Craziness.
But we realized something: this woman was walking much slower than the closest float in front of her; in fact, the nearest float in front of her had to have been a thousand yards away. This left a thousand yards of empty street for us to walk in... Which was, of course, still lined by masses of people along the sides and on roofs and out of windows. It was... Intimidating... Kinda frightening... But we pressed on.
We were now walking five abreast across the street. Five little white kids walking down the middle of the street; we were Carnaval at this point. People were going NUTS, cheering and shouting and whistling and loving us! It was bizarre, it was insanity, it was fantastic! There is nothing I would rather have done, nothing I would rather have seen, and nothing I can accurately describe... It was like watching the Grammys or the Emmys; when you see stars walking down the red carpet and people on all sides snapping pictures and screaming with their hands out, anxious even to touch the hand of their favorite star... Only WE were the stars, and the red carpet was 3000 feet long. We took our time, to be sure; I was actually blessed by a smiling priest who flicked water on me with a fern leaf and crossed first myself and then himself.
That was another thing; at home, in the states, our parades seem to be the bane of the churches and religious factions... But here, they are all a part of them! I saw nuns and priests and even a father or two, all smiling and cheering, enjoying the entire party! I wish our clergy would loosen up for a while and enjoy themselves... Although I do suppose that tomorrow is Ash Wednesday; maybe they wanted one last day of wickedness before they settled down for Lent.
We drew nearer and nearer to the float; we realized it was stopping and starting, signifying the final stages of the parade. At this point, we had walked a couple miles, being cheered all the way. In the Centro was the biggest stage of them all, announcing the significance of each float and its members as they paused and passed by. This was causing the hold up, and had we stayed back a bit, it would have been better... We passed the few floats standing between us and the final stretch when all of a sudden a man with a very large gun stopped us and asked us who we were with.
Weeeellll... He didn't believe I was with the New York Times OR Corona, so we were very quickly ushered through a gate and tossed into the crowd. So ended our trip down celebrity row.
This day has been insane. We woke up late, we got stuck at the very back of the parade, and we ended up being a bigger (and louder) draw for people than almost all the people who were supposed to be there. We took pictures and drank beer and shook hands and laughed and smiled and waved to the people; we came, we saw, and we bloody well conquered.
I'm so happy I came on this trip. This day kicked ass.
I'm gonna pass out now though. Walking that far (twice, actually; we had to walk BACK to catch the bus once the parade ended!) has taken it out of me; the fact that it was 80 and sunny didn't help my exhaustion either.
So here I stop.
Adios.