Carnaval in Gualeguaychu

We're recovering from our first Argentine "all-nighter", so will have to supplement this later when fog clears from the lack of sleep.
We left BA at 1pm Saturday with 24 Americans, Germans, Austrian, Argentines on a little bus.  The trip was three hours northerly through the delta of the Rio Plata to Gualeguaychu (accent on "chu", and if you can pronounce that three times quickly you get the prize).
It is a rather small farming town, which reminded us a little of Modesto, sitting on the river that defines the border with Uruguay.  The is almost no development on the Uruguay side of the river (and no bridge).  But the Argentine side is very properous, with a river walk and many restaurants.  This is the same river that is polluted by a Finnish paper company in Uruguay, which has been the topic of an endless debate between Argentina and Uruguay.
The town is very proud of it's Carnaval del Pais, which happens every Friday and Saturday in January and February.  They have a "stadium" similar to the Rio Sambadromo -- 500 meters long, 10 meters wide, with stands on both sides, seating 30,000 spectators.
The show started at 10 pm and we left at 3:30 am, before the last group paraded down the aisle.
Total sensory overload: simple loud music, more salsa than Brazilian samba;  800 dancers from three competing "schools".  I don't think that they have the local participation in the schools like Rio (there is no way that this little farm town could produce 800 young, attractive professional dancers).  The floats and costumes were way over the top.  Really unbelievable.  We stood the whole time and danced and sang (the songs are very repetitive, so that after the fourth run through you at least get the important phrases).  Somehow each of the schools comes up with a new theme and all new costumes each year -- although other than the headdresses, many of the costumes were on the skimpy side.  So here are a few of the sights from Carnaval de Pais in Argentina.

Each school has four or five huge floats, and then dancers and smaller floats interspersed.






















Smile and dance for the hour or so it takes to get down the parade route.

It doesn't look like fun, carrying all this on your back while dancing the night away.





















The dancers come to sidelines to pose for pictures with the spectators.