The Guadalajara Reporter

Mardi Gras fever mounts

Lakeside’s feverish Carnaval festivities are building up through this weekend to the Fat Tuesday finale on March 4.

Two events programmed for Sunday, March 2 in Chapala will give you a chance to catch the seasonal spirit. The annual Carnaval parade will roll through the center of town along Avenida Madero, starting at 10 a.m. or thereabouts. Let loose around sundown at the Carnaval Dance to be held at La Vela Plaza, on the far west end of the Malecón, kicking off at 5 p.m.  It’s a costume party that will feature lively dance tunes geared for wide appeal to folks of all nationalities. Admission is free to the public.

Set aside Tuesday, March 4 to celebrate in Ajijic. The town’s colorful Mardi parade is a wild romp with its imaginative floats, colorful costumes, and the masked Sayaca marauders who feed the frenzy by pelting on-lookers with showers of confetti and flour. The cortege heads out from east end of Constitucion at La Floresta around 10:30 a.m., traveling west to the Ocampo-Alvaro Obregon intersection at Seis Esquinas and doubling back to the plaza via Hidalgo.

This year’s Carnaval de Noche shindig begins with an after-dark parade that will depart from the corner of Aldama and Constitucion, about 7:30 p.m., repeating the morning route to the plaza and continuing to the waterfront via Colon-Morelos. A dance party follows at the Malecon, with a Brazilian style Batucada percussion group and Banda musical troupe setting the beat to shake and shimmy the night away.