Carneval in Cadiz

This past weekend we took a group trip to Cadiz, about 8 hours south of where we live. About 100 college students, both spanish and american, loaded onto two coach buses for a weekend of "Carneval" or, as our tour guide said in broken English "To Make Party". Carneval is essentially Mardis Gras -- it's a 2 week celebration leading up to Lent but the largest fiestas are on the weekends. Cadiz is the most famous place to celebrate Carneval in all of Europe!

our itinerary was as follows:

Friday:

12 pm leave Alcala for Madrid

2 pm board busses in Madrid for Cadiz

-- realized i sat next to a bunch of kids from Amherst College who think my dad is really cool and they don't even know him. They think I'm cooler because I know part of the Amherst fight song. I, however, did not think they were that cool.

10pm arrive in Cadiz, check into hotel

11pm board busses for Downtown Cadiz. Friday isn't the big fiesta night but our tour guide arranged with a bar to let us all in for 12 euro and 2 drink passes -- it was essentially like being at an american bar becuase it was with my american bus.

4:00am leave for the busses.

4:30 am arrive at hotel.

**side note, i'm not a party animal -- it's very normal in Spain to stay out as late as 6am**

Saturday:

10 am: wake up for the free breakfast at the hotel

10:30 am: went back to bed

2:00 pm: my friends and I woke up for the day, spent some time back in Cadiz shopping and looking around, worked on some homework.

9:30 pm: boarded the bus for Cadiz

9:30-4:45 am -- crazy crazy Carneval in Cadiz. It is what is called "botellon" -- party in the streets. 10s of thousands of people partying, completely in costume. it wasn't just young kids either. the ages ranged from about 18-65. the bars closed their doors and opened their windows. they served drinks into the streets and food vendors were everywhere selling ham, hot dogs, sausage, nuts, candied apples, etc.

Sunday

we boarded the bus around 1pm and arrived back in Madrid at 9:30 then hopped on the train back to Alcala -- where we witnessed pickpocketing for the first time!! it was a group of four people, one tried to touch my purse but I kicked her in the stomach! i'm always alert ha-ha. Unfortunately for the American tourist next to me, they took $300 out of his pocket.

Before:

After

we asked him for directions, he seemed to know where he was going!

table of wigs and masks for sale by gypsies!

one of my fav. costumes of the night -- matadors with their "bull". (their carrage was full of Mahao -- spanish beer)

some classmates

it's difficult to see but this is a huge plaza crowded with people.

notice -- doors of bar closed, but alcohol for sale outside.

every street was as crowded as this one!

a marching band of clowns -- to some people, a very scary nightmare.

-- a very old tradition of carneval, choruses performing satirical songs about the national government and poking fun at recent news. However, the accent in Cadiz is very different from Madrid and I really couldn't understand them!

again it's a little hard to see, but this street goes uphill. The carenval starts at the bottom of one hill, goes up the top and down the bottom again (on the opposite side) and ends at the beach. this street is PACKED with people playing music, singing, etc.

anyone want a midnight snack?