Carnaval in Cadiz

This past Saturday, I went to Cadiz for Carnaval. As you can see in my earlier blog post about my day-trip to Cadiz, the city has been decorated for Carnaval for weeks already. As I explained in that entry, Cadiz hosts the third largest Carnaval in the world- which is a pre-Lent celebration. The best words to describe it would be ridiculous and bizarre. None of the stores or restaurants or bars are open (for the legitimate fear of property damage) so it is literally a giant party in the streets.


Rather than attempting to book a hostel for one of the biggest parties in the world, we traveled to Cadiz through We Love Spain- a company that is dedicated to creating group travel trips to popular destinations for Americans staying in Sevilla. Although traveling in massize groups of Americans does not particularly appeal to me, it seemed like a great set-up. We boarded the bus at 8pm in Sevilla and arrived around 10pm. At which point they gave us a sandwich and a bottle of water each. We were left to do whatever we wanted as long as we were back on the bus by 5:30 am. Danielle was my Carnaval-buddy and we both dressed as Greek goddesses to be able to stick together more easily. Here we are on the bus-ride there:

After getting dropped off, we just started wandering around. I was surprised to see people of all ages out and about- not many young kids, but there were plenty of people in their 40s and 50s partying with the rest of us throughout the night. The stage, which had a variety of singing and dancing acts during the night, was in the main plaza by the cathedral. It was absolutely packed, shoulder to shoulder.

As you can see, everyone goes all out with their costumes. It was also particularly common for men to dress as women. I would estimate that about half of the guys at Carnaval were cross-dressing. And many of the costumes were also incredibly non-politically correct, but quite hilarious. 

As fun and exciting as the night was, it was a long time to be wandering the streets of a city. And it was a bit on the cold side as well. We bought some delicious street food to keep us warm- mostly sausages and sandwiches. But by 5:30 am, we were ready to head back to Sevilla.