Carnaval de Cádiz - Day 3

Saturday 9thFebruary

Despite it being the first morning for a while that I had been able to have a proper lie in, I was unable to sleep past 10.30am, so feeling wide and awake I decided to do a couple of jobs around the house that I had been meaning to do. It was the big Disney Day but we were unsure what was going on and the streets seemed pretty calm, Kira’s flatmates had told her that nothing much happened until 8pm so the girls decided to spend the day on the beach playing games on the beach. We met up at my house in order to change into our Disney costumes and begin drinking. Emma arrived first to start her Queen of Hearts make up, then Kath and Claire. We drew a target in lipstick onto the cupboard in the lounge so that we had something to aim for with my Brave bow and arrow. More and more people arrived to get dressed and begin drinking, outside we could hear the noise growing as more and more people filled Cádiz, bringing with them plenty to drink. Another student from University of Birmingham who is on his Year Abroad at Granada came to Cádiz on a trip with his ESN group. The ESN group here in Cádiz had organised a meeting in Plaza San Antonio at midnight.

By the time we were all sufficiently drunk and out of the house everywhere was packed. We had checked the timetable and things seemed to kick off in Plaza San Antonio at 8, we didn’t make it out for then but headed there once we were ready. Everyone was in costume, everything you could possibly imagine, from the typical police men and sailors to toilets and wheelie bins, it was so bizarre! You would have stood out a lot if you had not been wearing a costume. We spent some time in San Antonio before heading down towards Barrio de la vina where things were meant to continue. We spend the night mingling and partying in the street with all of the other costumed people, it was just like a festival apart from it filled the whole street. There were stages set up in random parts of the town with performances from time to time, the atmosphere was insane, at around 4am our group had fractured and headed its own way and Kath and I decided to head back to my house, however we got sidetracked in Plaza de San Antonio and started chatting to a group of sailors, we headed to a bar with them and spent the rest of the night there until we crawled into bed around 7am. By the end of the night walking through the streets was like wading through bottles, including broken glass, so be sure to wear suitable footwear unlike me in my flip-flops! The streets were lined with makeshift bars, people had put counters in the street to avoid bottlenecks at the doors and each was offering different drinks offers to tempt in passers by.

One thing I can say is that you should take great care with your personal belongings during the night, I managed to come home minus my phone and €30, some of the other people in our group has cameras and purses stolen, so please be careful! Our landlady also warned us about staying away from clubs that night because they would be full of drunk people from outside of Cádiz who would cause trouble, although we didn’t even need to go to la punta, everywhere was so busy. Whatever you do, this is not a day to miss!

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