Carnival!

Known as the second largest carnival after Rio, the festival in Santa Cruz lasts for two weeks and climaxed today with a huge parade along the sea front. We saw thousands of colourful costumes parading by, with dozens of samba bands. People of all ages took part, from toddlers to adult and with a large number of men in drag. The theme was meant to be Bollywood this year. Our rep arranged to leave half an hour before schedule, which was a great idea as we avoided the grid lock in the coach park, where hundreds of coaches were parked nose to tail and four deep.