Los Reyes del Carnaval de Campeche

I relax sometimes in the evening watching local news from across Mexico. Sky Mexico puts an hour or half-hour of all the local newscasts from around the country on channel 628, which they call in Spanglish "Local News."

Today is valentines day and also I guess happens to be the big day of a carnival in Campeche. For the geographically challenged Campeche is in the Yucatan Peninsula on the Gulf of Mexico - and if you're on land in Campeche the Gulf of Mexico is WEST of you. If you went due east across land you'd also wind up at the Gulf of Mexico, but (I think) in Belize.

So the local news appears to have largely been preempted by the ceremony of the crowning of "Los Reyes" (the King and Queen). Imagine a stage backdrop that looks vaguely like something out of New Orleans with a prominent "joker" character doing a "kilroy was here" at the top. Well actually, at the very top of the image you can see the McDonald's golden arches but that's not part of the stage. McDonald's tends to put its signage as high as either local zoning law (yeah I know, probably isn't any) or aviation authorities (more likely) will put up with.

They said goodbye to the 2006 King and Queen, who looked like they just stepped out of the Gómez family Quinceañera at the Marriott ;). They did this to Barry Manilow's "Copacabana." That's what sucked me in because they were doing an orchestral version of the tune and I wanted to see if it was going to be cheesy enough that they'd have the recorded voice. Yup. Then they introduced all of the 2007 Queen's court who also looked like they just stepped out of Quinceañeras. The Queen herself looks like a feathered wonder - ain't no way is she gonna wear this dress again. Looks vaguely like Evita. Background music before they unveiled the Queen was Vangelis I'm pretty sure but now its switched to some other tune I've heard before but I can't make out the lyrics, it sounds like something sappy that was written for the occasion. She's having a bitch of a time walking - dunno why she's got completely impractical shoes on because they are completely invisible underneath this huge flowing sequined dress with a 2-meter train at the back. The King looks regal, and oh for cute...

It's definitely out of the normal TV viewing but I'm sucked in. Hadn't planned on watching this to be sure! You can get a flavor of it at the official website:
http://www.carnavaldecampeche.com/
If you happened to be reading this well, NOW you could see it at
http://www.telesurtv.com/ (you have to accept an AOL/Nullsoft plugin to view the video)

The stream on the web is about 90 seconds behind Sky. Sorry, tried to get screen grabs but the plugin image doesn't come along for the ride. Maybe I'll get ambitious and put the video as a link, just remembered I have a personal video recorder attached to this sucker.