May 1st in Mexico is Labor day. EVERY government office is shut down, and if a store is open, the management is required to pay the employees triple their normal wages. There is one catch... all of those government employees are required to march in a parade down the malecon.
Another parade? Well, lets just say that getting up at 6:15 to get a spot for an 8am parade start was not needed!

The parade didn't actually start until right about 9 and was over about 9:40. There were no floats, no marching bands, no clowns – well that's debatable – there were couple of balloon vendors, a row of drummers and a couple of bugles that sounded more like kazoos, lots of banners and several hundred government employees dressed in t shirts depicting their division or union.



The 'parade' walked down the malecon to the big kiosk at the center. The first group, one of the biggest, gathered all around the courtyard, where they listened to a speech, 'rah- rah', blaring on the speakers set up all around including a pick up truck on the sidewalk.


About 10 minutes later, the next group came along and gathered on the street in front of the first group. A second microphone had been set up on the street level – right in front of the first groups speakers. This second guy proceeded to do his speech, almost but not quite as loud as speaker number 1, who was still talking. So, we've got two speakers rah- rahing at the same time! Only in Mexico!



As we'd been to other parades and had to stand 5 and 6 people deep, we got there early to stake out our spot. The only problem was, there was no crowd! The people that usually gather to watch the parade, were in it! There wasn't anyone left to watch!



Tomorrow is the start of the Founders day celebration with lots of activities planned all month. There's a half marathon, some mountain biking races, on Sunday and the last leg of the Baja 1000 is starting today, ending in Cabo. There's a bike race and lots of cultural stuff – arts and crafts, theater, fiestas, live music and dancing exhibitions. Now if we an just figure out where to be and when!