Carnaval, Days 3 & 4
Last night was the coronation of the ugly king, which I passed. The next morning I looked in the paper and the ugly king was not ugly at all! My impression was that he would be like a clown king with a funny crown and all that. The locals thought that was very funny and told me it’s just a title that doesn’t mean anything. Less fun, I think.
Tonight was. . .I have no idea. There appears to be stuff everywhere. Out on our street and on the main boulevard which we are just off, there are loads of street carts, a lady walking around with a giant boa constrictor tossed over her shoulders, people having impromptu parties on the bleachers, and music, music, everywhere.
I went downtown because I heard there was a concert on the malecon (seaside promenade). The bus had to take a detour, the route of which I was uncertain, so I got off early and walked down Avenida Independencia, the same street where the kid’s parade was. The street was cut off to car traffic and was swarming with folks. It seems like the food carts coordinate what they’re all going to be offering each night because tonight was all hot dogs and pancakes, mostly pancakes, which is especially odd because before tonight I hadn’t seen any.
As I neared the zocalo, the crowd became denser and denser until nobody could move. Something big was going on at the zocalo and everyone was crowded in to watch on the many giant projector screens set up around the square, since the square itself was jam-packed. I felt a little like I was in hell, but I got out alright and approached the square from the other side. It was less terrible, but I did’t see the point in staying, so I wandered towards the malecon.
Along the way I came upon a. . .drummer band? There were at least 12 drummers and a couple of some-kind-of-shaky-thing players and also a couple had whistles in their mouth. The music they made would best be described as “tribal marching band.” I stood and listened for about 15 minutes, and during that time they worked on only one song. There were a few times where it seemed like they were going to stop by dropping down to only 1 or 2 drummers but then others would join in again. It was pretty cool stuff.
I continued on my way to the malecon where it turned out there wasn’t a show going on until later. 10 p.m. isn’t late enough I guess. Instead of musicians, the promenade was lined with vendors displaying their wares and weird street performers, like a space Merlin and silver robot cowboy (unfortunately I neglected to bring my camera). I bought my first souvenir from one of the street vendors, notably one who had their stuff laid out on the blanket-covered ground and didn’t launch into a sales pitch. When I asked how much the item I liked was their maybe-6-year-old kid jumped in and performed the whole transaction, although his mom gave me a bag. Pretty cute.
I returned to my meandering exploration of broohaha back towards downtown but to the south, in the general direction of where I could catch a bus home. I heard music so I went towards it. In the same park-venue two weeks ago I saw a fun salsa band but tonight there was what I guess was Mexican metal? All I know is they had electric guitars, lots of yelling and grinding and long hair, and there were notable groups of leather-clad biker dudes in the audience.
That wasn’t so much my scene so I headed towards the Plazuala, a semi-enclosed plaza where there’s usually live music and dancing. When I got there, sure enough people were going bonkers salsa-style, but there was yet another band down the street whose music could be heard. The other band was also playing some kind of Latin/Carribean something (I could tell there was clave and that’s about it), but just off-beat enough to hurt my head.
I’d say the party is well under way.
Now if only I liked parties!