Havana Carnival

Parades and street parties, colourful costumes, wild dancing and traditional music: Cubans really know how to throw a party, and for several weeks each year, they do. The fun and frolics reach high levels over weekends, when the locals put their toil and troubles away and bring out the rum. Carnival comes with some traditions, like effigies of well-known people being paraded along the coastal road, the Malecon, and the gaudy 'faroleros', decorated lamp posts carried aloft by dancers.