153rd Ponce Carnaval 2011- Part 2

The ‘Burying of the
Sardine’, March 8th, 2011 and the conclusion of ‘Carnaval Week’ in Puerto Rico.

As reported in my last post- Carnaval in Ponce, this is a fantastic time to be in Latin America. Great music, great food, outrageous costumes and tons of fun. An event the entire family will enjoy.

Though there are things happening the entire week before Ash Wednesday, the weekend before is always the most active.

Activities during the week don’t get started until after dinner. There was a much more relaxed, local feel to Tuesday night’s celebration.

According to US Census, Ponce’s population is just under 180,000
(as of 2009). So the scale of activity is nothing like being in a big city like Rio de Janiero or New Orleans. A definite home-town vibe. That’s a good thing as far as I’m concerned. I felt pretty safe the whole time I was there.

Tuesday Night..

The weather was crystal clear, with only a very light breeze. In fact, it could be considered cool by local standards. A few women were wearing sweaters.

Tuesday’s activities were scheduled to begin around 7PM so we got to the Plaza (Plaza las Delicias) about 5:45PM. This gave me time to score a few shots before the sun had completely set.

The crowd was much lighter than Sunday, but that was to be expected. The same mix of locals and tourists as before. There were less vendors too.

The main event tonight was the live music followed by a small parade and the ‘Burial of the Sardine’. I need to say up front, I did not actually see the burial. It was way too crowded around the make-shift cemetery plot to squeeze-in.

I did get a nice unobstructed shot of the finished sand sculpture before the light faded away. Once the sun set, I got great night-time shots of the Plaza, the main fountain, food vendors and the old fire station as well. You can just barely make out the tiny moon in a couple of images. All shot from a tripod.

As usual, the locals brought out their folding chairs for the live music.

Performances included local folk music as well as Latin, Caribbean and African rhythms. There were also dancers in costume working the stage. It was very impressive, to say the least.

It made you want to get up and dance!

The Parade..

I want to thank the ‘Powers that Be’ for setting up a portable flood lamp set at the corner of the Plaza where the parade would pass by. The shots I got were due to this.

The parade, lead by Rey Momo, hit the Plaza sometime after 8PM.

It was mostly comprised of youth marching bands followed by a crush of Veji­gantes escorting a big black hearse. Again, because of the bands pausing to perform in front of the main stage (about a block off), there was lots of time for ‘photo ops’. The crowd was moving around and within the parade so it was quite the street scene.

Veji­gantes were working the parade, posing for shots.

There is another unique ‘fixture’ of Puerto Rico, I have not seen any place else.. giant truck mounted sound systems with flashing strobe-lights, used to blast out music and advertising.

They are a very common sight here.. kind of like traveling radio stations. A local method for delivering cheap advertising. They drive by our place all the time, day or night. You can here them coming from blocks off. I love ’em. I think they are cool. The one featured here is the largest I’ve seen to date. They are typically mounted to dual-rearend pick-ups or large vans, but I’ve seen them mounted to the roofs of minvans and small sedans as well.

If these ‘rolling boom-boxes’ have a special name, I don’t know what it is.

The parade came to a close with the passing of the hearse.

At this point, the crowd mass made a move in the direction of the ‘sardine burial plot’. I knew I would not get any usable shots from up there so we made our exit.. that was about 10PM.

Ponce is a marvelous place to visit, no matter what time of year, but this is extra special.  I’m not surprised the Travel Channel will feature Ponce on TV.  I look most forward to it and I’ll be tell’n all my friends on Facebook about it too!

Yet another wonderful time in Ponce.