El Desfile de Ninos – Children’s Parade

We arrived in Mérida early in the afternoon on Thursday in plenty of time to check into our lodgings for the next three nights and to get things sorted away so that we would be free to watch the first parade of the 2009 Carnaval, ‘el desfile de ninos’.  Before the parade which was to take place at 4:00 PM, we walked around the main city square and got a few photos of the crews setting up seating for the crowds.  Seats were for sale in this area.  Once away from the main square, it was basically standing room only along the barricades.

It wasn’t too long before the clowns were out in order to keep the waiting crowds which were filled with kids, their parents and other interested people, occupied while waiting for the parade to start.  The streets were closed to traffic two hours before the parade was to begin.

Security in the square and all along the parade route was in full force, a mixture of municipal cops sporting their D.A.R.E. badges and caps, police stationed in towers all along the route, all the way to riot cops and machine gun toting police wearing bullet-proof vests.

Of course, every good parade must start with the king and queen of the parade such as these two youngsters who had the honour for this year’s children’s parade.

There were twenty-four different groups, all from various preschools and kindergartens from around the city.  Each group came dressed in a theme to match movie themes such as High School, Pirates of the Caribbean, and the Lion King.

In between each of the twenty-four groups, a truck, van or SUV was in place so that each group would have its music to move and dance to while making their way along the parade route.

After more than an hour, all twenty-four groups made their way past the town square, the starting point of the parade.  And like the opening of the parade, the police pulled up at the rear, a positive presence that spoke loudly about the national pride in its young people, its future.  So began our three days in Mérida.