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Its that time of year in the Canaries. In general you either love or hate it. Most locals prefer it to Christmas and spend anything from 3 months before preparing. Just like in the UK after the Christmas decorations are cleared away in the shops and the Easter eggs appear, here the extra space is filled with every type of carnival costume and accesory you could possibly imagine. Having said that, most people opt for making their own. The imagination runs wild. In the run up the beaches and streets are quiet with people at home with their glue guns and sowing machines.The week before the procession there are competitions to elect the Carnival queen, mini carnival queen, golden age carnival queen, best singing group (murgas) and best dance group. Its a week of entertainment and the big day arrives, the procession. People take to the streets, never starts on time and takes a good 3 hours from start to finish, maybe longer.The drumming continues and the bars stay open all night. If you have the stamina it will be 7.00am when you finally get home. Everybody is dressed up in fancy dress. If you are not, you do feel the odd one outMonday after the procession is the burial of the sardine. This you have to see to believeThe process is repeated in the weeks to come from town to town until a week before Easter.
Carnival finishes and the fanatics start making plans and preparing for the next.For me it always takes a special effort to go but once the atmosphere grabs you its easy to enter into the spirit of things

Will I go this year? To be continued