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Last Sunday the 28th of February, La Romana came alive with the banging of drums, the blaring of music and over 20 Carnaval comparsas dancing, marching, jumping and prancing along the streets.
The ‘Gran Desfile’ – essentially the main parade began at 3pm (Dominican time = 4pm) and was quiet simply incredible. The parade itself was made up of 20 ‘comparsas’ which is difficult to translate into English, but is basically a ‘carnaval group.’ Each comparsa from different areas of the DR, although part of the same main parade, is totally individual, different and has it’s own theme and music.
Hundreds and hundreds of people from La Romana (and a few tourists) turned out to watch and cheer for the parade – many in costume themselves.
As you can see the costumes were mind blowing – so colorful and intricately decorated, each one must have taken literally weeks if not months to make.
For me the most impressive costumes were those pictured above and below – with enormous head dresses. Amazing!
And having spent the evening dancing around myself as a ‘Diablo Cajuelo‘ at our ‘Carnaval in Casa’ I can fully appreciate how hot those costumes are!
Below is a photo of some people enjoying the Carnaval, including Gricelle Lahoz suitably dressed in her Lamp outfit! Gricelle was a member of the winning comparsa at our Casa de Campo Living Carnaval, held in the Marina Casa de Campo on the Saturday night, to read more and see photos of the Carnaval in Casa, click here.
Here is a nice collection of my favorite carnaval outfits as well as a few cheeky snaps of my friends enjoying the Carnaval:
