The last 5 days in Tenerife - Part 4: Carnaval Parade

Never ending parade

But after a while it became quite exhausting to be there at the side of the road, watching the dancing and singing participants and seeing the same thing all the time. Of course, the costumes differ a bit and the themes of the large carts, too, but after one and a half hours of Parade everything started to look similar. We were hungry and tired and didn't want to see more of the parade, but at the other side we knew that it would maybe be the only time that we would see the large Carnival’s Parade of Santa Cruz de Tenerife. So, we decided to stay a bit longer and wait for the end of the parade, even if we really hoped that it might be soon. In the end it took longer than we had expected, but we were happy that we had waited until the end. After my Vietnamese friend had bought something small to eat the others wanted to leave the place in order to go the large square where all the bands would play music the whole night long and the bars would sell drinks outside and everything. But as the two of us didn't like partying and were already quite tired from watching the parade for hours, we decided to say goodbye to them and walk slowly to the bus station (even if we didn't know where it was exactly).

With the GPS at my smartphone we found out that we were quite far away from the bus station - we would have to walk about 25 to 30 minutes. But we didn't have a choice, so we started our way through all the drunk and disguised people - many of them were also walking home already in small groups, but my Vietnamese friend and I felt a bit alone and insecure in that city, as there were so many drunk guys and Spanish tend to be quite intrusive and loud then. When we had left the zone where the parade had passed by, it became dark and quiet around us, we could only see some people walking home or standing in front of small restaurants and bars, eating and drinking alcohol.

We thought about passing by McDonalds, but we didn't find one that was still opened at 2 a. m. So we walked straight to the bus station and found out that there were some extra buses to Puerto de la Cruz due to Carnival. That was great news for us, as we had expected that we would have to wait about one hour for the next bus, but it was already there and would depart 10 minutes later. Fortunately, there weren't too many people, so we got seats in the bus and could return home easily and relaxed. The first relaxed aspect during this evening in fact. After 30 minutes we arrived in Puerto de la Cruz, next to the German supermarket, and I took a taxi to the hotel while my friend was walking the 200 metres to her apartment. I could have walked too, as it wasn't quite far, but after my encounter with that strange guy who had followed me for a while, I had become scared of walking home alone in the darkness and preferred investing 3 euros in a taxi. When I arrived at my hotel room, I just put off my clothes and fell into bed. Carnival had been really exhausting!

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