We have spent the past couple of days walking our legs off and enjoying the local Carnival. Carnival is the party that takes place before lent starts. It started on Thursday evening and will go until Tuesday evening ending on Ash Wednesday. The main Malaccan is blocked to traffic and is wall to wall with booths selling food items and bandstands. The food booths carry all the local favorites with the fare ranging from carnitas (meat tacos), dried fruit, hotdogs wrapped in bacon, hamburgers, beer, mixed drinks and lots of pastry booths. There are also little carts pushed around by people selling candy, nuts, cotton candy and masks.

I have to mention the blanket stands. There are these stands piled high with blankets and a guy with a headset blasting over a loud speaker selling the blankets. I can't understand what he is saying but he keeps adding matching pillows and throws to the set and talking prices. I think he is saying "And not for 400 pesos, not for 300 pesos but for only 125 pesos you get all this". It is the local version of the Ginsu knives.

About every 100 yards there is a grandstand with a band playing; each with a different type of music being played ranging from Mexican cowboy music, family entertainment to hard core grunge rock that sounds like White Snake on crack with the voice of Satan singing. The volume is intense sending sound waves that reverberate against your sternum and internal organs.

One interesting thing is that the party down here doesn't really get going until 10pm which is probably normal for most events even at home but since we're usually in bed by 10 and tucked in the boat by 6 we miss a lot. I guess our age is showing. Anyway, we took a nap yesterday afternoon so we would be able to stay up late and didn't even leave to head down there until 9pm. By midnight it was wall to wall people where you could hardly walk and certainly your personal space was shared by many. We had decided that we had seen enough to feel like we "partook" in the local custom and made the walk back to the boat. Now, remember, it is about 2 to 2 and half miles each way. By the time we got back to the marina all the gates were closed up and locked so we jumped the fence. After scaling the 8 foot fence we had one of the guards approach us and said we could have just used the door! ?THERE"S A DOOR?

Besides the carnival yesterday we walked up to CCC, the grocery store, which is like a Fred Meyers as they have everything from toys, jewelry, and auto oil to meat, fresh tortillas, deli and even hand out samples while you shop of various food products. We walked up there, about 6 miles, and then took a cab back. The cab ride is 80 pesos. There is a closer small grocery store about 2 miles away we go to when we are only buying enough that can be easily carried. The amazing thing is that you can find almost everything here. I haven't found wild rice but I love buying 4 avocados for about 70 cents and other very inexpensive produce.

Tonight is one of the three parades. We plan on walking down there and taking our camera so we can take some pictures which we will post on the blog. Since the parade doesn't start until 6 Scott plans on doing some varnish work and I have a book I just started that I'll work on.

Currently it is an almost cloudless sky and 76 degrees, 40% humidity and oh yeah, 9am!