Last weekend was the biggest party in Spain: Carnival. You bet I didn't want to miss out.
Carnival is a 10-day long party 'celebrating' the beginning of lent (celebrating really meaning just binging on the things they're about to give up for the next 40 days). Every [Christian] country has their own version of it. For those more familiar, it's Mardi Gras, Spanish style.
So once a year, thousands of young people make a pilgrimage to costal city Cadíz in wild, creative, and not-safe-for-work costumes. They cart along with them bags of booze to make it through the long night. Essentially, it's a Spanish botellón with costumes, and no jackets in the middle of winter. Only in Spain. (For those still unfamiliar with the concept of botellón, I'd like to reference Wikipedia.)
My wonderful friend Vanessa decided to come along for the ride (she already being experienced with Carnival from the previous year). She came into Córdoba the previous day so she could explore the city and we could prepare our costumes. In an effort to save money and brain power, we decided to not dress together (as is the custom - big groups decide on their costumes together and dress alike). Doing minimal shopping, I dresses as a cowgirl and Vanessa as a pirate. I got a hat, some pistols and fashioned a large belt buckle (resisting a last minute impulse to put a giant "W" on it) and she got a sweet sword and we were looking savvy and set to go.
We took one of the many advertised buses for carnival (ida y vuelta for 15 euros a person - great deal!) which left Córdoba at 6pm and arrived in Cadiz close to 10. We would party the night away, check out a little bit of Cadiz, and head back on the bus at 730 in the morning. Or so was the plan.
After looking at the weather report, we had the suspicion that our plans may not go accordingly but retained the optimism that only two people in elaborate eleventh-hour costumes could.
Alas, we arrived in Cadiz after nearly 4 hours on the party bus. As soon as we got off the bus, the Mario band started - literally - and the crowd began to dance in circles in what was only a warm up for the night to come. After rounding off a couple tunes, the group moved towards city center where the big party was. We came across a stage with a group of wildly dressed men singing vivaciously - the infamous Chirigotas, satirical songs that native speakers have admitted they can barely understand. After taking just a moment to appreciate the cultural moment, we moved on to check out the rest of Carnival.
What we found were hordes of people in brilliant costumes: nerds, playboy bunnies in birthday cakes (men, not women), flies with their swatters (and the excrement to come with), Baywatch Babes (again, men - not women), mops (like the kind you clean your kitchen with), showers, and lots of Avatars. I have always regretted not getting to Hollywood during Halloween - but I'm pretty sure I had an awesome taste of what it is like (especially if you just added tons and tons of alcohol). For a couple hours we moved through the crowd to see the costumes, take pictures, and talk to some very friendly (and probably drunk) Españoles.
After running into some cows who were most interested in showing us their udders (no perversion, I mean that literally), the rain started. It was just a little, but enough that we found some shelter in a cool little bar where we found a cozy place to sit and have some drinks and munch on the sandwiches we packed. While we were in there a drumline came in and fired up the crowed by playing and passing out straw hats. After a couple hours, we decided we wanted to check out maybe some other bars or discotecas. Probably a bad move as we were unsuccessful and moseyed on back after about an hour, only this time the bar was far more packed with nowhere to sit and barely any room to stand. Staying only for a little bit, we left again while everything else was closing up.
Of course, this is also while the rain upped the ante and went from a steady drizzle to bullets in the wind. Looking for any type of outdoor shelter, we brainstormed and went to the train station to find a terrace where other people had also decided to camp out. After taking a short walk further to see if there were any other options (that left us very wet as the wind rendered our umbrella practically useless) we came back to the station and set up a fort by a post (umbrella to our backs, plastic bags on the ground) and began to do anything we could to take our minds off the weather and the time we had remaining until our bus picked us up (which we were informed would be 630am instead - a great relief). T-100 minutes.
We played 20-questions, what-would-you-do-if-you-were-on-a-desert-island, filmed videos, sang in that time and near the end, we were suprised to look around and discover that all the people that had originally shared our shelter with us had disappeared. We wondered where they had gone (hadn't we have found the best spot possible anyway??) but prided ourselves on keeping our minds off the surrounding misery. As we left the terrace to see if our bus had arrived yet, we walked past a large temporary building that many of our fellow Carnivalers had piled into to stay dry. Guess that's where they all went to. Wimps.
Finally getting on the bus, we took off our wet clothing (I was tempted to actually take off my jeans, but thought better of it). I was most relieved to ring out my now-soaking socks and put on the dry ones I had stored at the bottom of the backpack. Thank you Mom for being so smart. So, with my dry socks and draped scarf, Vanessa and I snuggled together on the bus to sleep a few winks on the way back to Córdoba and finally end the great adventure that was Carnival 2010.
I'm not going to post any more pictures here because really there were too many to choose from, so please enjoy the full album here.
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