Carnaval: The Regional Yucatecan Parade

By the fourth parade I was able to get a decent shot of the Mask float. It was one of the best and I found myself looking for it every day.

Yucatecan night is my favorite of all the parades! First of all, we saw the action from a new location, in the centro on 60th Street. The street is narrrow compared to Paseo de Montejo where they use the lanes heading south for the parade and lanes heading north for the food and beer vendors. In the centro they utilize every centimeter of space. Both sides of the street are blocked off and temporary box seats constructed all along the route. The vendors push their carts down the street for hours before parade time, but you have to walk a few blocks for the beer. Pablo bought us our own box of eight seats. We considered selling the unused seats, but decided to splurge (at 28 pesos per seat) and enjoy the elbow room. Pablo played his tambor with passing musicians, while I took lots of photos and sucked up a couple of large beers.

This event brought out more participants from outlying areas, and the parade lasted more than two hours. The mood was upbeat, the music and dancing quite lively, and there were so many beautiful smiles. The costumes were a bizarre mix of old style Mayan-Yucatecans and the cartoon/movie characters as evidenced by the photo above.

Horse carriages are one of many typical modes of transportation in the Yucatán. I think they add a special charm to the procession of parade royalty. Having horse carriages here is so common even I have a horse trough in my patio area.

All eight of these seats are ours! What a luxury after being crammed in curbside along Paseo de Montejo. It was a completely different scene on 60th Street.

Several photos of the typical Yucatecan dress and smiles.

The parade on Regional night is not just all T&A!

Could you guess these are Mayan women? All around the Maypole.....they love to pole dance!

There were many groups like this. Great for people watching and obsessed photographers!

Then there was this kind of Mayan "woman".....he's not too bad looking if you like this sort of thing. The kids in the box next to us asked him if he was a man or woman, and he told them he was a woman. They were confused. They were quite young.

I know I have no business posting my shitty videos, but I love them! This one really reminds me of my childhood.....or my wedding......seems to me you could polka to this music and the dance is pretty close to what we learned in our neighborhood in Toledo, Ohio!