Merida's Carnaval 2012 - Saturday February 18th Fantasy Parade

The first two years here Tom and I attended most if not all Carnaval events; in fact one year we were part of the parade on a Touribus!  The past few years we have attended only two Carnaval events, the Childrens parade and the Regional parade.  This year we had not intended to go to any parades but friends intervened.  We were invited to a reserved table at a restaurant at the beginning of the parade route. How could we refuse?

I have a little Panasonic Lumix FS20, it's a great camera EXCEPT for movement in dim light, which of course is how the parade was; I got some shots that I will now share.

We were intending to go to friends house for a visit prior to the parade, but once we got close to where we needed to pass across the parade route we realized it was just not wise, in fact we called our friends and told them they needed to get to 'the other side' soon, else be trapped on 'the wrong side'.

This afforded us an opportunity to see some of the setup and prep.  We live near the end of the parade route so this was our first experience at the front of the line! (not counting the time we were in the parade riding on the Touribus)

This is our vantage point!

our table was at the base of the tree just there on the picture left

 View from our table

my vantage point

 Our 'Group", we took some props which always help to 'get the goodies'.

and now, finally,  some parade shots!