Santa Cruz de La Palma has a very special carnival tradition, we do not want to miss. "The Carnival Monday is fully dedicated to the emigrants, returning from overseas in their white suits as a symbol of their new wealth in the home. On this day Sprinkle each other with talcum powder (or baby powder), bis alle weiße Anzüge tragen.“ – so schrieb es unser Reiseführer 🙂

Dietmar got the whole "Powder history" from the beginning very critical. As Hamburger its carnival passion is anyway not particularly remarkable, der Reinländer ist da doch deutlich mehr experimentierfreudig 🙂

But somehow I succeeded, to motivate him so far, that we were quite early on Monday morning in the car to Santa Cruz. Would start the show with the arrival of a ship with the "Moors" on board. The figure "La Negra Tomasa" was 1992 von Victor Lorenzo Diaz Molina, called Soso, launched and is now an integral part of the "Día de los Indias". The figure represents the mixture of black and white in the Cuban culture.

At the port, a crowd had already gathered. We quickly had to find, that wearing white clothes was mandatory. Unfortunately, my motivational skills were not in the morning but have been so far successful, we also costumes were traveling. Now we felt in our colorful clothes almost like the animals in the zoo, aber das ließ sich jetzt auch nicht mehr ändern 🙂

In my imagination, I awaited the arrival of the Moors with a large and imposing ship, that borrows heavily from the old ships, which formerly was the Atlantic crossing. So I was quite surprised, when a little later a small white boat approached the port.

This arose from the Moor, The withdrew a really great show and definitely something brought the crowd together with the Samba drummers boil.

So the train started moving towards the city center, raged in the streets already numerous battles powder. On every street stall you could not just cocktails and beer, but also buy large cans of baby powder. But particularly startling was the powder guns, large amounts could shoot powder over the crowds.

The Dietmar was then too colorful or rather to know so we had to beat a retreat. Clean and without "powder damage" we reached our car and quickly searched the length. On our way across the island but we realized, that we had only seen the beginning of the Spectacle. A bus to the neighbor, crowded with white-clad party animals, came to meet us and the west side of the island must have been terrifying afternoon but empty, because only tourists and Carnival muffle sought refuge here.

To complete I have a few pictures from the internet used. Maybe it was better, that we are gone. Vielleicht wären wir sonst an einer Babypudervergiftung zugrunde gegangen 🙂