Carnival in Las Palmas, Gran Canaria, Canary Islands

Spending time in Las Palmas, Gran Canaria in the Canary Islands during Carnival was on my bucket list last year and I got to experience it this year! I had been to Aruba during Carnival several years ago  and while it was a lot of fun, it was nothing compared to Carnival in Las Palmas. The people of Las Palmas really know how to party! I’ve heard the neighboring island of Tenerife also puts on an awesome Carnival. Maybe I’ll get to experience that next time!

Carnival 2018 in Las Palmas was from the 28th of January to the 18th of February and included everything from a drag queen gala, children’s parades, canine carnival, and body makeup contest, to name a few events. This festival has been going on from the 15th century, with a major revival of the street festival in 1976 so there is a ton of history in this event. It seemed like everywhere around us, people were dressed up in costume, dancing, and drinking, so it seems to be a hugely popular event in the Canary Islands.

Carnival in Las Palmas is like Halloween in the United States on steroids. Not only were there groups of people walking the entire distance of the parade route or dancing in party trucks dressed in costume but many spectators were also dressed in costumes. Some of the costumes were really creative too, like the pair we saw dressed up as the first apes in space (I wish I had a good photo of them but I don’t). The main parade lasted for hours but we chose to just watch a portion of it before we found a spot to grab dinner (which was full of other people in costume as well as the workers being dressed up).

Leaving Carnival was another story entirely and one we had not planned appropriately for. Since so many roads were closed off for the parade, we were unable to get onto the road we needed to get back to our Airbnb apartment about 30 minutes away. There were no side roads we could take because of the nature of the island and layout of the roads. Ultimately we had to drive very far away from Las Palmas to get back on the only road to our apartment.

Lesson learned:  either stay in Las Palmas during a major Carnival event like this parade and walk to your accomodations or plan ahead of time how you’ll get around all of the barricades. If you plan to stay in Las Palmas during Carnival, you’ll want to make reservations well in advance as most of the nicer places will be booked, which is why we were staying 30 minutes from Las Palmas.

Have any of you ever experienced Carnival around the world? What was it like?

Happy travels!

Donna