Last night was both the Burning of Bad Humor and the re-enactment of the 1864 Naval Battle where Mazatlan repelled the French.  It was quite a night!

We were heading to Cerro de la Vigia during the Burning of Bad Humor, but we read in the paper this morning that they burned Héctor Carrillo, a judge in the election of the Carnaval Queen.  When the vote came out as a tie, he hastily said that he made a mistake, and cast his vote differently.  It was quite the scandal, and as you can see from his discarded effigy (below), he paid for it!

The fireworks were amazing.  They went on for more than 20 minutes or so.  I tried to capture them with my new camera, and did get some nice video and stills.  There is a boat set up in the bay (the French) that shoots fireworks towards land , and the Mazatlecans shoot back from the beach.  It was the best fireworks show anyone in our group had ever seen.  I took a picture this morning of some of the remains on the beach, below.

Below are a few videos for your enjoyment.  The first video is taken from the roof before the fireworks began.  All the bands were playing and Olas Altas was packed solid.  The final video is just a few seconds but was taken of the streaming humanity flooding off the hill.  I have never been in such a crowd, really it was a bit scary – kind of the lift up your feet and be carried along kind of crowd.  But it was peaceful and everyone was laughing and carrying the kids on their shoulders.

And finally, we thought you might want to see a picture of Henry, the ultimate Party Animal!