Carnaval

Well, Cadiz was interesting. Picture with me if you will KU´s NCAA basketball championship celebration. Now, mix that with Halloween and some crack cocaine and then I think you´ll get the idea of how crazy Carnaval really was. It all started on Saturday when about 15 of us got on a bus at 1:30 p.m. in Ronda. We had heard that it was pointless/impossible to get a hotel room in Cadiz during Carnaval so we hadn´t bothered with getting a reservation...you can see where this is going, can´t you. Our plan was to get there around 4 p.m or so and stay up all night until our bus ride home the next morning at 9 a.m.
The ride there was very relaxed. We were all semi-dressed-up in our costumes and the number of young people heading to Cadiz only grew as we went along. After a few hours we arrived. Like every other city in Spain, Cadiz was beautiful. It had great beaches, the weather was NOT 20 degrees as our teacher had predicted and it was filled with tiny alleys that all looked like my version of Diagon Alley in Harry Potter. Getting off of the bus, we were surrouned by people in costumes. I believe the most popular were: men in drag, men as babies, Avatars, hippies and power rangers. We didn´t actually know where to go so we just followed these crazies away from the station into the center of the city.
In the main square there was a giant stage set up for a competition for Miss Carnaval. Amazingly enough, this actually proved to be one of the highlights. It had women from spanish-speaking countries all over the world do a quick, one minute traditional dance and then give a quick speech (none of us could understand them). In a shocking turn of events, Miss. Cadiz won and then cried.
After the competition, the rest of the night was utter chaos. There were so many people! We were litterally running through the streets trying to find either one another or one of the many bands to dance to. It was really fun! Eventually we all ended up in separate groups with mine venturing away from the city´s center to go to the beach. So at about 4 a.m. me and three of my friends had the beach all to ourselves. What did we do? We went swimming! And, yes, it was cold. But how many times can you say that you swam at 4 in the morning in the south of Spain during Carnaval?
After the beach we headed over to the train station to wait with the rest of our group in a warm, dry spot.
I feel like I´ve already gone on too long so I won´t bore you all with the details but the train station was intense. I guess word had gotten out that you could wait there for free so everyone and there mother was trying to get in. I felt like a passenger on the Titanic and I think my friend Abbie was thinking the same thing because in the middle of the shoving and pushing she screamed, "women and children first!" In the end we, along with everyone else, were kicked out of the train station. So we ventured over to the bus station (why we weren´t here first I couldn´t really tell you).
This too looked like a scene out of Titanic. Everyone there was cold and hurting and you could tell. To make matters worse, there were a few revelers who had not come down from the excitement of Carnaval and were going around playing their plastic guitars and singing some sort of football song. I just remember thanking the Carnaval gods that these blokes were not going to be on my bus.
After several cold and uncomfortable hours, our bus finally arrived. We all got in line to board when suddenly from across the way we see the same band of revelers who had kept everyone up in the station. They were on our bus! And did they stop singing anytime on the ride back? No. Were they just as obnoxious on the bus as they were in the station? God, yes. Thankfully most of their attention was turned towards a middle aged man who pleasantly let eveyone know that he had had a good time at Carnaval when he started running up and down the bus and conducting everyone with his toothbrush.
All-in-all I´m glad that I went to Cadiz. It wasn´t all pretty (two of my friends got pickpocketed) but for me, it really was a once in a lifetime experience and I feel like I did it right.