That’s true. I only saw half the Crazies parade this morning in San Miguel de Allende.

The upper half.

Even at 6-foot-2 I wasn’t tall enough, or close enough to watch the Dia de Los Locos parade with such an unobstructed view. Man, there were a lot of people out there, and they got to the curb long before I did. What’s fair is fair.

Therefore, you may notice that many of my photographs are filtered through a variety of hairstyles, various hats, the occasional waving hands and fingers, hands holding iPhones in front of my iPhone, and the odd umbrella.

The alternative would have been to elbow my way past small children, short old ladies, and innocent families in order to gain a front-row seat on the thousands of people parading down the Ancha in costume.

Well, I’m just not that sort of guy. Which may be why I’ve never had Covid. I don’t do well in crowds. Never did. Long before crowds became superspreaders. And this one was about as tightly packed as you could ever imagine.It was chaos in a delightfully linear sort of way. A river nearly overflowing its banks and the banks crash in on the river, sending all that energy hurtling downstream. In the spirit of the whole thing, I shall present to you photographs in as chaotic a manner as possible. Run with it. Enjoy it. Cheer for your favorite costumes and watch out for flying candy.

(Click on any picture to enlarge!)

I can’t speak for the whole parade route — which wound its way through Centro after sweeping down the broad Ancha — but I suspect it was positively claustrophobic on the narrower streets up the hill. Even where I was, along the broadest street in the city of San Miguel, it was hard to separate paraders from parade watchers. It was that densely packed.

Anyhow, jolly good parade. Hundreds, if not thousands, of people in outrageous costumes danced wildly behind boom-box trucks with nimble-fingered DJs pumping out very danceable music. Lots of people were tossing candy wildly into the crowd, sending children and many adults scurrying underfoot for the stray lollypop or caramel. Lots of hard candies, too. I have the bruises to show for it. Sometimes, height can serve like a beacon on the shore of a candy-craving humanity.

In other words, tall people make great targets.

After a two-year layoff, there was a lot of pent-up energy out there on the parade route. People danced with abandon and you could almost see smiles behind their masks.

And of course, more people than ever came out to watch the show. Organizers were estimating 100,000. That’s possible. I mean, it felt like 100,000 just up by the intersection of Dickerson and the Ancha.

Well, if the point of all this — I mean, after honoring St. Anthony whose feast day this is — is to create smiles, then the Locos parade did its job. It is good to see thousands of people in one place just laughing and smiling. You know, not airing some grievance, or trying to topple a government, or stealing an election.

Just having good old-fashioned fun.

With a lot of candy thrown in.