Carnaval - La Lanterna Magica

We've been to Carnaval before in La Paz. But Mazatlán's is the third biggest (or second biggest, if you don't count New Orleans' Mardi Gras) in the world (the biggest is, or course, in Rio). 

We went to the fireworks in Olas Altas on Saturday night - unfortunately, it was so crowded that there was no way to set up a tripod, and thus I have no pictures. Next time, we'll rent a hotel room - they were all sold out by the time I thought to.

Sunday night was the first of two parades. It was spectacular. We purchased tickets for the bleachers at the Hotel Aguamarina,, and they were WEP. They had a very good buffet lunch before (I imagine because otherwise you'd be sitting around with nothing to do - the traffic gets so bad that trying to get to the parade area would be  nightmare within a few hours of the parade) I'll let the pictures tell the rest. (Click on a picture to enbiggen)

The crowd about four hours before the parade started

Edward Scissorhands

These light-up hair bows were very popular - no, I didn't buy one

Nice glasses!

Sunset before the parade

The crowd. The parade route is about five miles long, and it's packed the whole way

The floats were almost all movie themed.

King Tut

More King Tut - I don't remember a movie about this... maybe Raiders of the Lost Ark?

A Carnaval Queen riding the King Tut float

Another Queen - the gowns are really spectacular

Yet another Queen

Ben Hur

Ben Hur

Ben Hur

Hair

Mary Poppins

Grease

Grease

Titantic

Don Quixote

Avatar

Spiderman

 Every so often, there would be a group that didn't appear to have anything to do with a float, like this figure on stilts. He was really dancing on those things - he must have been exhausted by the end of the parade:

ET

The Toy Story float

Mr. Potato Head from the Toy Story float

Princess Leia from Star Wars and an At At

Darth Vader and Chewbacca

R2D2

Stormtrooper

Dancing Stormtroopers

Frida

The Three Musketeers

Dancers with the Three Musketeers float

The Three Musketeers and their band

Jurassic Park

The Wild One

 For this year's Carnaval, there were some dancers from the Carnaval in Brazil. They (and their tiny costumes) were spectacular.

The Brazilians' band

The band's float

Dancers

Dancer

Dancer

Dancers

 Carnaval was a fantastic experience - I'm so glad we had to stay in Mazatlán to wait for the renewal of our residency cards!