CARNIVAL! - Cadiz

Hola,
So this post is going to be just as crazy as the adventure was! This first picture is of the sunrise I saw as I was waiting to take the bus to Madrid to take the bus to Cadiz. The trip was incredible. I went with two friends Ben and Jessica. The bus ride down was wonderful. It was 7 to 8 hours and there was always something amazing to look at. The landscape here in Spain changes so much faster than in the states. Besides the bus, the weekend overall was really relaxed. We went for the festival Carnival. We made no plans except when we were leaving and returning. We did not reserve a hotel or anything and just went without a care.
This was a great plan because we just did whatever was happening. We went with the flow the entire weekend. In Spain it is quite normal to stay out until 6 or 7 am in the morning on the weekends, but for Carnival that is extended to 9am or later. We just thought that we would sleep on the beach during the day and party with the locals all night. Well our plan was slightly foiled because it decided to rain a little bit. Oh well. We just didn't really sleep. I think total we maybe got a total of 4 to 6 hours of sleep for the entire weekend. No regrets this was a great experience. So many random things happened and we saw so much more of the culture that we would have missed out on.
Below the sunrise picture is the gate way to the old city of Cadiz. Below is a beautiful building near the coast line. The architecture in Cadiz was more like that of Cuba than the architecture in other places of Spain. On the right you see some lights. This is the big festival for Cadiz, and they had this kind of lit up sign all over the city. It was beautiful.







During Carnival we just tended to walk towards load noise, it is usually a good indicator of something fun going on. This was a plaza that had a small stage that had various mens choirs perform. It wasn't at all like the choirs in the states. There performances were hilarious as were there costumes.

















That wasn't the only performance we happened to wander to. This was in a larger plaza. It was like a rock concert. I can't remember who we saw, but I have it written somewhere. Sorry, but the Friday night it was a man similar to John Mayer, and on Saturday night it was a man who played a Spanish style of music Flamenco, Jazz, and some other stuff. They were both really good. And as you can see they got the crowd, soo many people, involved.

These were some of my favorite costumes. I think they are from a video game, right?

This was a random float that was driving around the city, there was no parade or anything, it was just driving around. Carnival had a lot of random things like that.

Well we had to sleep at some point. We only slept for an hour or so here, we were constantly being woken up by other people that weren't ready to go to sleep at 7am. What an adventure!

The gateway during day.

We went to a park and it had a beautiful water fall. It was actually one of our favorite places.

A fisherman, I took a nap near bye, the sun felt so good. I think it was upper 60's.

We ate bread, wine, cheese, oranges, had some traditional apple wine (don't recommend it), and watched the sun set.

The cathedral

This was an "unoficial" parade that was wandering the city, they were hilarious.

This is the start of the official parade. Now by our standards the parade was not a parade. It was more of a marathon. The people went by so fast I didn't get pictures of all of them. But here is some that I did get. There was a group of people dressed up in bikinis or speedos, it was really awkward, but funny.

You have to have chickens and men that throw batons, right?

One of the best costumes I think.

There were so many people in all of the streets. This is a plaza in front of the Cathedral and it is just packed with people celebrating the festival. There were so many people that you couldn't get through the streets, some times, it was craziness everywhere.

Wait! Where did all the people go, and who cleaned up so quickly?











There were so many cats along the waterfront. It was really wierd.












This a picture taken at low tide.

An arch heading out to the walk way to a castle or possibly a prison, I'm not really sure.

It was such a pretty area. There were all of these tiny pools of water.

Some people just don't want Carnival to end, this was taken at about 11am on Sunday morning, Cathedral in background.

To the immediate left we wandered into these Roman ruins that just happened to be open. It was really neat.

It was a theater originally, but over the years it has served as many different purposes. No its a tourist attraction!
This is what we had planned to do. Sleep on the beach. These people had one thing we didn't, a sleeping bag. On the right of the wall of rocks are people running into the water to go surfing. Cadiz is also known to have some really good surfing during different times of the year.

Until Next Time,