Cape Town Long Street Carnival (March 19th)

Oh Wow! What A Spectacular event and what a showpiece for Cape Town and South Africa as a whole. All of the Housemates and I were eagerly awaiting the First Annual Cape Town Carnival on the 19th of March and we made sure that we were there early in the evening!

Man, the first major hassle was to find parking in the City Bowl, as we had to come all the way from Camps Bay and there wasn't any public transport that could get us safely into town and back... Eventually, we settled on parking at the Cape Quarter and walking up to the start of Long Street, which was already crowded with people waiting for the parade to start. There was barely a centimeter's space to move anywhere and the crowds were packed like sardines. which meant that it took us the better part of 45 minutes to get up to the spot that we had planned to watch from.

We eventually had to squeeze up a narrow staircase to get to our spot and luckily, we were still able to get access to the bar area,\ or we really would have been in trouble! As it was, we quickly found out that there was one major snag that we hadn't foreseen. there was only one tiny toilet for nearly 150 people! And both Kimberly and Brianna needed to go when we got there! Man... That was the first time that I have seen any woman so desperate that they were
          willing to pee in a pot-plant in public or even prepared to hang their butts out the window! And they were not the only women, who were dancing around to another beat... Fortunately, the others housemates did not have the same problem or it would have gotten ugly pretty fast.

The Parade started just after sunset and what an absolutely incredible sight to behold with the full riot of colour and the dazzling performances of the dancers! The floats were stunning and very creatively designed, which made more than a few people around us gasp in amazement and bewilderment at the sheer magic used in their production! the costumes were also very elegant and very well made!

We were really surprised by just how much work had gone into the parade, the costumes and the floats! The music accompaniment to the individual sections of performers was extremely well organised and planned out...

Additionally, we were pleasantly amazed by the competent security contingent that was responsible for mantaining order in the Long Street area, which at the best of times can be worse than any of the Wild West towns of American history... The Street lighting was also very effective and more than adequate to showcase all the different aspests of the parade for the spectators.

The experience of the Long Street Parade was very entertaining and well worth the effort of travelling into the centre of Town after sunset and I would honestly recommend it to anyone, based upon the fact that it was on the same organisation level as any other around the world! Alright, so it didn't have the massive numbers of participants or the brilliant costumes of Brazil... But then in this case, sometimes less actually feels like more!

My Score for the Parade:     5* Overall         4* for the Costumes       5* for the Floats  
                                               5* for Tertiary Organisation      4* for the Parking Facilities