Carnaval Figures

The theme of this year's Carnaval is "the Magic Lantern". Something that they do for Carnaval here that we haven't seen in La Paz is put up huge figures related to Carnaval's theme along the málecon.These are called monigotes, which means "puppets", as far as I can tell. They're a good 25 feet tall, and there's on every quarter of a mile or so along Avenida del Mar.

Marilyn Monroe

Marilyn Monroe is set up right by the sea lion statues. don't try to tell me that placement is accidental - you just know that someone planned ahead to have the sea lions looking up Marylyn's skirt.

 

 

 

Marcel Marceau

Pedro Infante

Pedro Infante

Cantinflas

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Marlene Dietrich

A description of how these figures are made (in Monterrey) can be found on this blog: Vidamaz

Lobster season is open now, and several fishemen offered to sell me some lobster as I was walking past the area where they bring their boats in. Since I was going to be walking a while and hadn't brought a cooler with me, I declined, but I think tomorrow we may be having lobster for dinner - yum!

Pangas on the beach

 You can see in the picture above how they bring the pangas up onto the beach. They basically get the front end up onto a two wheeled trailer with a crossbar, and then pull the boat up until the wheels are amidships. Then the use a log to support the aft end (definitely the heaviest part - some of the outboards are 200 HP or more) and roll the boat up the beach above the high tide line. It's pretty amazing - the boats must weigh nearly 1000 lbs.

The bow's not a bad place for a nap

Beer can handholds

The bus I took back to the marina has beer can handholds - not the greatest picture, but these are pretty funny - they look like a beer mug, but sealed inside is an actual can of beer - sure would be handy if they were a) cold and b) openable.