The closer the train to the city of Cadiz, the more costumed folk jump aboard. We think about the possible costume ingredients we will be able to find in our limited backpacker selection. Getting off at the Cadiz station and suddenly we are in a different world… it is carnival time! People everywhere in the train station, on the street, in the street, are changing into wacky costumes. There are clans of sailors and bunches of sunflower men, fairies and elves, Vikings and giant babies, and plastic bags filled with bottles of wine ready for the festivities. With some scarves, plastic jewellery, a clown nose, orange sunglasses, black and green eyeliner and some strategically placed hairstyles we transform ourselves into a clown of sorts, a hippy of sorts, a pirate of sorts and a cat (of sorts of course). Whisky whisky whisky, music music, chips and chatting and my new friends could very well be the most fun I have met on this excursion. From Holland and Estonia, the travelling duo has been living life as a ball in a pinball machine. Launching off and just being thrown at random around Spain, never knowing where they will end next. Will it be a squat in Barcelona, a villa on the east coast complete with a car to drive, a backpackers or someone's couch? Fun; these kids are fun. And for this weekend I play pinball.
So we launch and land in a square of costumes. I follow my ears in the direction of the music. A stage is filled with men in skin coloured costumes with strange apparatus hanging at all directions. No idea what they are meant to be but I stand amidst the crowd and hide under some umbrellas and watch and cheer along. Like the balls we bounce from one group of people to the next, chatting and drinking with them and a huge concert suddenly appears in what must be the centre square. It is a blur of colour and activity which could be due to the persistent (soon to be torrential) rain or from a few too many drinks…
For me the carnival ends sometime in the morning, when it is still the thick of night and the wind and rain make it impossible to walk more than five metres before hiding behind a pillar of some kind. I cling to the hope that sun will come out. I dabble in some couch surfing and when the sun finally rises and I walk along the main street I see that Cadiz has a great beach running parallel to the town.
My whiskers have long since washed away but I took a bunch of photos and danced some amazing salsa (it is true, Amazing salsa, we even had an audience circle). Carnaval Cadiz … was kaleidoscope crazy.
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