Carnaval de Cádiz - Day 2

Friday 8thFebruary

I had one final exam to sit at 9am on Friday, the first day of Carnaval where there were things on the timetable that we fancied going to see. Once the exam was over (despite it not going quite so well) I felt an instant sense of relief that I could finally relax and enjoy myself, the weather was beautiful and Cádiz was buzzing with the massive influx of people here to enjoy Carnaval. The majority of the day was spent with the girls first in the Cathedral Square and then in the Tower, we had a goodbye lunch for Claire and managed to get her to go up the tower. We then all split up in order to do a few last minute things before Carnaval kicked off properly, I had to buy a bow and arrow set to complete my Brave costume as well as a couple of bits of food for over Carnaval, we weren’t really sure what to expect. Would we be eating at home? In the street? Not at all? So I bought a couple of things to store in the house, just in case. We were to meet up again at 6.30pm on the corner of Calle Ancha to watch the Carnaval Queen parade, which we hoped would be interesting as there is nothing like it in England.

At 6.30pm we all met up again and when Anissa and Sophie arrived they told us that they thought they had already seen the parade, that it was just a boring marching band. We were all a little disappointed but we decided to stay in case they were wrong, the streets of Cádiz were teaming with marching bands, so we hoped that it would be something special. It was definitely the right choice to stick around for  the parade to come, we soon heard the tell tale signs of a marching band approaching, and people began to walk past us towards San Antonio where the parade was finishing and the crowning ceremony was taking place. The band came into view, sponsored by the Spanish Smarties people, they were all dressed in bright colours and played some really interesting tunes, including Danza Kuduro. A large group of majorettes followed, twirling their batons, they were arranged from oldest to youngest, with the ones at the back being very cute but not so adept with the batons as their elder counterparts. Once they had passed there was then the procession of the Carnaval Queens, they were all seated in large horse drawn carriages, with two queens per carriage. The costumes were amazing, really brightly coloured and elaborate with massive headdresses, the queens sat in the carriages beaming out at the crowds and waving, whilst their supporters followed them and people snapped photos, there were repeated shouts of ‘guapa’ when the girls passed by in their carriages.

 The parade stopped and started to allow for everyone to get a good view of each element of the parade and to try and keep some semblance of unity, once the last carriage which contained last years’ winner of the Carnaval Queen had passed us we headed towards the front of the giant stage in Plaza de San Antonio. We got towards the front of the crowd and waited for proceedings to kick off, there were cameras everywhere playing directly onto the big screens and we managed to get on a few times in between the reporters bringing us all the backstage gossip as the Carnaval Queens got out of their carriages and prepared themselves to take to the stage. There was quite a bit of waiting before a man dressed as a pirate flanked by four women holding a large sign took to the stage, at this point he began to talk to the audience and periodically would hit the sign that the girls were holding with a large stick, at which point the audience shouted ‘Blam Blam’. We think that it must have been some form of sponsors advertising but it was about 10 minutes long and we didn’t manage to make much sense of it, quite glad when he headed off stage.

Once the Blam Blam man was gone the stage was taken by a drunken sailor, swiftly followed by his captain, they did some sort of comedy sketch which ended up in the whole drunken sailor crew appearing on stage and forming a choir to sing songs of the sea. Once they started singing the song about how calm the sea can be and some dancers appeared on stage for an interpretive dance thing. They were dressed in skimpy blue costumes with their bodies painted with blue wave like patterns, their dancing was good and the choir were very impressive. Once their first dance was over the Carnaval Queens were ushered onto the stage to stand and look pretty for us all whist there was another dance displaying the other ways that the sea can be. It got all dramatic at one point and a man painted with black waves came on and did some impressive leaps and things, there was an impressive use of an over head projector and some water and dyes that were projected over the stage to great effect.

When the dancers had finished showing us all about the sea the pirate captain came back with a large scroll to introduce us to the Carnaval Queen candidates, they were each inspired by a different sea-related thing, there was a Starfish, Conch, Wind, Sand, Salt, Prawn and more. Some had taken theme very literally – I am thinking of the prawn girl whose entire arm was engulfed by a giant pink prawn which was very bizarre. The dresses were none the less very impressive and I was really surprised that no one took a tumble, the dresses looked impossible to walk in, but they tried their best and kept a brave face on despite a couple of issues. There were cheers and cries of ‘Guapa’ after every girl was introduced and there were obvious pockets of supporters for each girl in the crowd. Once they had all been introduced they then did some little parades with all of them as some music played, which seemed to just be killing time.

 Then the stage was graced by last years’ wedding who was dressed head to toe in a white elegant gown, she gave a speech thanking everyone and saying what an honour it had been to serve as Carnaval Queen of Cádiz for the year. She got very tearful at some points, and the crowd seemed to adore her, I am not exactly sure what a Carnival Queen does but they are clearly very important. Then came the time to announce the new winner of Carnaval Queen 2013, the 2012 queen was given a treasure chest that she opened and retrieved an envelope which she then had a deal of trouble opening, there was then a few moments of suspense before she announced the winner. The girls who had all been lined up nervously at the back of the stage holding hands all screamed and began to cry before converging on the winner and engulfing her. Once she was freed from the embraces and congratulations from the other Queens the winner came to the front of the stage to be crowned, which proved rather difficult as her headdress couldn’t be removed to get her winners sash on, or put on her new crown. Instead she held the crown in front of her as she was draped by a cape then gave her very tearful and thankful winners speech. At this point I had to dash off to make it home for the despedida we were hosting for Jana, but the other girls who stayed behind insisted that I didn’t miss anything afterwards, just more tears from the new Queen before she left the stage.

The streets around me were very quiet after that, we only found out why when we headed to the Irish Bar later on that evening and the televisions there were showing the scenes from inside the Falla theatre where the choir competition was being held. We had looked at attending this but decided that the ticket price of €40 minimum was a bit too much for us, especially if we could see it on the television. It would seem that everyone was either watching it at home, on big screens in bars or gathered outside the Falla theatre. So if you are interested in the choir competition head to one of these places or be sure to get tickets early. We headed home early that night, but it did not seem that there were many people out and about in the street that night anyway.

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