Day Trip To Okay - Kanaval

Day Trip To Okay - Kanaval, a set on Flickr.

Tuesday we drove to Les Cayes (Okay to the locals) for National Kanaval - Haiti's answer to Mardi Gras. We spent the afternoon at a public beach and then headed in for the Kanaval parade in the evening. It was a day of AWESOME! Being able to get out of the city limits and see so much of the mountains and the ocean and the province! Ah! Of course, in retrospect - the decision not to carry my camera into town for the parade was not the best, I missed out on taking some spectacular pictures, but considering the vastness of the crowd, I'm not that mad about it.



We ate lunch/dinner at a Resto on the beach. I ate the fish. It was the first time in my life I've ever been served a whole fish. Interesting. The dogs showed up as soon as our meal was served. The lucky bastards got fed well as there were many parts of my fish I didn't even attempt to try! And OH! was that fish spicy! Haitians like their food in equal parts sweet and spicy! Joe kept teasing me that it wouldn't burn for long!

There were copious amounts of Rhum. I tried to stick to the water. No sense dehydrating that far from "home".

I LOVE the ocean! I could have stayed in there forever! Somewhere in that water my heart found a place to rest.

Eventually the sun played Hide and Seek and decided not to come back out from the clouds. We changed into dry clothes, brushed the sand from our sunkissed bodies, and meandered into town. I would have sworn that someone picked up a couple of blocks of the French Quarter and dropped it right in the middle of Okay! Except for the missing Jazz Quartet, it was like a snapshot of New Orleans. The booze, the bands, the brightly adorned parade participants, the masks, the paper mache - they had it all!

Joe, our superb host for the day, is a very well known character. There were thousands of people there for the parade and we couldn't move 5 feet without running into someone he knew. He even knew the president personally, so when we arrived in front of the presidential stand, we got escorted to the front of the crowd to greet Sweet Mickey.

I'm going to attempt to attach another flick'r album of photos from the day. Someday I swear I will sit down and figure these things out. I mean, really, I have nothing but time while I'm here, right? I mean, it's not like taking care of 19 little ones is any big deal! LOL