Whether we wanted to or not, we saw the Carnaval parades each night as they passed by our hotel balcony.

The parade got longer and louder each night as partiers realized there were only a few days left until Lent began. Fat Tuesday (Mardi Gras) was the loudest and longest of all with what seemed like 100s of floats participating and too many dancing crews to count. The parade ran south to north on the main street of the island (at least 2 miles) and then turned around to run north to south. On Fat Tuesday, the parade actually met itself coming in the other direction!!