A Carnival at Carnaval...

Carnaval wouldn't be complete in Playa without a carnival full of food, games, rides, and shows. That's the one thing I just love about where we live. They have traveling carnivals in the US, but no one really goes to them because honestly, they are kinda lame. But, not in Playa! They really know how to throw a party, and it seems like the entire population of Playa comes out for the 4-5 days that the carnival is set up.

Last Saturday I had one mission...to see the parade. On our way back from hanging out on 5th we walked through the carnival area a bit, and I kept thinking how dumb I was to eat bar food
when I could have had yummy vendor food. To say I was salivating walking to our car is an understatement. So on Tuesday, I wanted to see the parade, yeah, but what I really wanted was to get my grub on!

We saw these massive taco things, and I knew I had to get one. OH MY GOD! It was so dang good. I got the arrachera (flank steak) and...yum ummm yum ummm. Do you get my point? It was good I tell ya! There was so much that I had to take half of it home. Being a good wife, I made Seth tacos with it the next day. Don't ask me what was going through my head because it was some darn good meat. While we were eating, we were sitting underneath the ski lift so we got to see everyone passing by and wave. We're cheesy like that.

They had 4-5 booths set up that had cooking utensils typically used in a Mexican kitchen. You could buy then individually or wait until the end of the night for the auction. The guys stand up on tall platforms and start shoving things in plastic bags while auctioning off their wares. Its pretty ingenious, I think. We got to see how a booth was completely full at the beginning of the night, and then mid-way through the auction, they only had a small fraction of their stuff left.

All those pretty colors could only mean one thing. Sugar. Yeah and lots of it. This booth had every possible sweet concoction that you could think of in Mexico. You aren't going to find popcorn balls here. Pish! You kid! Uh, huh. No way! But you will find almonds with pure cane sugar poured on top and made into a nice tasty snack for your loved one.

They had all your typical games for people to play. But I thought the colors were much more vibrant and the toys a lot more fun. My favorite was the two story trampoline area for kids. I wanted to jump in it looked like so much fun!

They had lights going off of the municipal building that changed colors every few seconds. Yeah, the kid in me was fascinated. All those guards standing around? Overkill in my opinion. But, its just an opinion. 

And of course, a must for all festivals...a concert. Every night of carnaval they had different dance and musical shows. We couldn't even get close to the stage because there were probably over 500 people standing in front of us watching. But even as far back as we were let me tell you...loud!

What is that you ask? Oh, that's just one of the vendor's baby's sleeping in a hammock. Completely passed out with all that noise and music going on around him. My child would have been climbing out of that thing in a second with the hammock wrapped around her as if it were a shawl. Puts "sleeping like a baby" in perspective.