The Merida Carnival must be one of the great celebrations in all of Mexico

We were counting down the days until we could leave Merida. Our beachfront rental in Progreso wouldn't be ready for another week and, after a month of heat and noise in the city, we were anxious for a change. Not that noise was a character flaw of Merida, it was more the fact that our apartment fronted on a busy street. We just couldn't escape the car horns, train whistles, buses and trucks.

Suddenly the weather turned very cool, which apparently is a signal in Merida for the start of Carnaval. We knew it was coming. You couldn't escape the ads and signs posted everywhere in town. Preparations were well underway. City workers had erected bleachers in the median the length of Paseo Montejo. Beer and beverage tents, food kiosks and itinerant merchandise stores crowded the sidewalks. Bandstands were erected at every intersection.

There was to be a parade. In fact, there was to be a parade everyday for five days. I anticipated the usually trouping of Boy Scouts and Girl Guides, a fleet of half-ton trucks with waving dignitaries and pretty girls, a fire truck or two and a plethora of boring speeches. The reality was quite different. Merida puts on a world class parade; perhaps not as elaborate as the Rose Bowl Parade but first class nonetheless. Depending on the day and the pace of the marchers, the parade takes more or less two hours to pass. The major beer, food and soft drink companies enter elaborate floats. They are adorned with the most attractive young women that Merida can muster. All are clad as sparsely as possible. The Sol Beer ladies are very appealing and are crowd favourites.

As each float passes, the viewers are bombarded with tee-shirts, beer company hats, candy, plastic beer glasses, bags of chips and other miscellanea. There is a constant frenzy in the crowd as this manna rains down from above. In between the floats, troops of students represented most every school in the city. All of the students were in elaborate costume, with Mayan headdresses being a consistent theme. Many were eight to ten feet in diameter and extended to the ground where they were supported with little wheels. They looked more like butterfly wings. With the wheels, the marchers could swirl majestically, eliciting enormous cheers from the crowd. One participant had a headdress the full width of the street. It was so large, there were attendants to help him in his manoeuvres.

Stilt walkers were very popular as they strode down the avenue without fear and with extraordinary skill. They were accompanied by puppet people who thrilled the little children with their cartoon antics. After a while, you lost all sense of the size of this parade. The participants must have counted in the thousands and yet the viewers out-numbered them by the tens of thousands. The crowds were simply enormous.

Once the parade had passed, the streets filled up with excited revelers. The crowds were as thick as grapes at harvest time. Usually quiet and staid, the people of Merida were in a frenzy of celebration. In a city where the police kept people on a tight rein for 51 weeks, freedom reigned for this one week of celebration. The police were more plentiful than ever but were mainly disarmed. Empty holsters were the style of the day.

The beer vendors kept the party going by offering six packs poured into one giant plastic beer bottle which was carried like a badge by many of the young initiates to hard core drinking. Food was being consumed by the truckload. French fried potatoes topped with cut up and deep fried wieners seemed to be the favourite along with corn on the cob. All the usual carnival foods were available, including candy floss and hot roasted peanuts.

The biggest crowds concentrated at the band shells where popular and skilled bands played music non-stop until one in the morning. Between songs. . .

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John McClelland lives and works in Ottawa, Canada and spends a good part of each winter traveling in Mexico.

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