Sunrise on Thursday, February 16. The crescent moon rose not long before the sun did, and was glowing brightly as the sun rose. 

Wednesday had been a mellow day, but Thursday was the exact opposite – we went non-stop from morning until bedtime. 

After completing our morning chores, we took the 1310 shuttle to town. The other day, the Uber that took us back from the grocery store passed a chocolateria called Fan Fan. We were hoping it would be similar to See’s, where we could get a couple of pounds of high-quality chocolates in flavors of our own choosing. From the cathedral, we walked the few blocks to the chocolateria. We were disappointed to see that this was their entire stock of chocolates:

Since no flavors were posted, we didn’t buy any of the chocolates. But they did have other desserts, including a fairly large selection of gourmet brownies and cupcakes. So we bought some other desserts, instead. From there, we took an Uber to the big Chedraui, where we loaded up on passage food: popcorn, chips, pretzels, candy, cookies, bread, lunch meat, yogurt, cheese, etc.  

We had to wait quite a while for an Uber to pick us up to take us back to Costa Baja.

As soon as we returned to Kosmos, we unloaded our groceries and headed back out to the parking lot, where we summoned an Uber to take us back to town. We had to wait more than half an hour before someone accepted our ride, and another 20 minutes before he arrived.

Tonight was the first night of Carnaval. Much like Mardi Gras in New Orleans, Carnaval was an annual celebration of indulgences prior to the start of Lent (In Catholicism, the 40-days before Easter is called Lent, and Catholics are all supposed to give something up for lent). Carnaval traditionally ends on Fat Tuesday, the day before Lent starts. This year, it would be a five-day celebration that began today. Unlike Mardi Gras, this was a family friendly event, so none of the risqué things associated with Mardi Gras in New Orleans were allowed here.

Carnaval was La Paz’s biggest annual event of the year, and apparently every year it got bigger than the year before. Each year, hundreds of thousands of people would come to La Paz for Carnaval. Hotels were usually sold out. In recent years, the city had been spending over $800,000 USD on it. In 2021 and 2022, Carnaval was canceled due to covid, and everyone was excited about its return this year. The rumor was that this year, the city spent closer to $1 million.

The event took place on the Malecon. We’re guessing that about 2-miles of the Malecon had been closed to car traffic. The Uber driver dropped us off at the blockade on the north end. We could see that on the waterfront side of the Malecon was a long line of vendor booths, with a stage in between some of the booths.

On the other side, there were also a lot of vendor stalls, but they had been strategically placed so that the entrances to the businesses on that side weren’t blocked. 

Most of the vendor booths were assorted food items, but there were also a lot of carnival games, as well. 

We’d skipped lunch and were starving. The food from the vendor booths smelled wonderful. We went to several food booths to try to get something to eat, but none of them were open yet. We realized that we’d arrived too early; Carnaval hadn’t really started yet. We were starting to get hangry (angry from being hungry), so we decided to get a burger at a place near where we were standing called TexBurger.

We each ordered a normal sized burger ala carte so that we had room for vendor food. The burgers were good, but we liked The Melt better. 

Right after we finished eating, we went outside and waited by the stage for some of the crew from Erin Skye. We were also trying to meet up with another family who was currently in our marina, on a boat called Wind Rover, but it turned out there were multiple stages and they were waiting at a different stage on the other end of the Malecon. 

Once we figured out the misunderstanding, we started wandering down the Malecon. The sun was beginning to set, and the sunset was glorious. It made for an incredible backdrop for this fun and happy event. There was an empty lot next to the restaurant Bismark, and it was filled with carnival rides. 

As we continued walking, we passed dozens more food and carnival game booths, many booths selling merchandise, a few more rides, several bounce houses scattered at different points along the way, and several stages.

Some of the stages were empty.

One of the stages had girls dancing.

Several of the stages had bands playing, each with a different style of music, and each with the speakers turned up so loud that the music as deafening. Here was the most colorful point of the sunset.

We did eventually find Wind Rover about at about the halfway point. They turned around and walked south with us, even though they’d already been down that way. At the south end of the Carnaval, the skate park was also filled with carnival rides, and across from the skate park were a row of bouncy houses.

We were surprised to find that the bouncy houses were free of charge, but they were only for kids. Keith went in, but they wouldn’t let in the teens from Wind Rover or Erin Skye. 

We’d read that this event was generally well-patrolled by military and police. At the south end, we also noticed an entire bus full of military personnel, and watched as they exited the bus and joined the crowd.

Our progress down the Malecon had been slow in part because we’d stopped to eat numerous times. Christi ordered a fried plantain. After ordering, the vendor cut the plantain into pieces, dolloped it with strawberry jam, and poured some sweetened condensed milk over the top. It was served with a churro on the side. Churros are long, skinny donuts rolled in sugar and cinnamon (pictured in the tray to the left of the plantains). The plantain was phenomenal. The sweetened condensed milk took it over the top.

Eric ordered a corndog. It looked like a huge hotdog, but it was a normal size hot dog with a ton of breading. Eric thinks the white sauce may have been ranch dressing and the red sauce was ketchup.   

Keith got a cup of corn kernels, which was drowned in cream, nacho cheese sauce, and cotija cheese crumbles. There were also additional optional toppings available. The toppings looked like they might be crumbled up other foods, like maybe crumbled up flavored corn chips. Since we weren’t able to identify exactly what any of the toppings were, Keith decided to play it safe and not try any. 

Once we got to the south end of the Malecon, we decided to head home. We’re normally early risers, but tomorrow we needed to get up extra early for our passage. It was not the right night to be out late. We said our goodbyes to our friends. Over the last seven months, we’ve said goodbye to many people, but usually we said to one another “I’m sure we’ll bump into you again soon.” Tonight was sad because we knew this time it was a real goodbye. 

We were worried we’d have to wait a long time for a ride back to Costa Baja, but much to our relief, our ride was accepted almost instantly.