The Carnaval parade

Don't worry if you missed the Mazatlan Carnaval parade.  I'll give you a little summary of this darling spectacle.  This was a parade for people of all ages.  And many of them were in festive garb.

This is a young couple we met at the bus stop, ready to celebrate.

 

The malecon was filling up when we got there aboutd 3:30.  

 

Many people had set up camp for the afternoon while they were waiting.  Some even had barbecues going.

 

If you didn't bring a chair you could buy a little stool from this lady.  She was doing a brisk business.

  

These two girls were already bored with waiting.

But these young ladies were happy to model their special sunglasses.

Finally the parade began.  The first part was the commercial section.  It consisted of beautiful girls gyrating on top of trucks and tossing samples into the crowd.

 

We were seriously concerned that these two might slip off the truck in their spike heels, but they seemed ok.

 

This lovely young woman looked very elegant sitting on top of a semi truck in her silver dress and gloves.

And so did this little senorita in her princess dress with her friend the robot.

 

 For the kids, there was the Bimbo bread float with bubbles and samples.

  

At this point, everything stopped for about forty minutes.  We watched the sun set and wandered around the streets at bit. 

Everyone was still in a festive mood waiting for the big floats to arrive.  You can see these girls are covered in confetti.  Kids were buying bags of it and tossing it everywhere.

 If you wanted to you could buy yourself a mask, or a balloon or a snack.

 

 

But this little girl seemed happy just to play with the confetti.

As the sun set the second part of the parade came into view with bands on trucks, men on horseback, and a long column of farmers protesting something.  (I need to find out what that was about.  There were probably a several hundred marchers.)

Then the lights came on and the big floats arrvied with their costumed dancers and regal beauty queens. 

 

The floats were lovely but I have to say that for me the best part of the parade was seeing the Mexican people of all ages, from grandfathers to babes in arms, to teenagers, all celebrating together.