We all know that carnival on Tenerife means madness, mayhem and over the top parades. But  the carnivals that take place outside of Santa Cruz, Puerto de la Cruz, Los Gigantes and Los Cristianos rarely make it onto visitors’ radar. And yet it’s at these where you can find some of the most unusual ways to celebrate carnival.

Each year Güímar produces one of the most stylish and sexy carnival posters on Tenerife and 2012 is no exception. The poster by Luis Marrero, titled The Transformation, illustrates one of the town’s main celebrations, Las Burras de Güímar.

Mysticism and Güímar, the home of the much debated pyramids, are no strangers. Neither is superstition or tales of witchcraft. So a carnival street event involving satanic dances, witches who transform themselves into donkeys to cause mischief and destroy farmers’ crops and a full on battle between the forces of good and evil seems quite an appropriate way for the young people of the town to let their hair down and have a bit of fun.

Las Burras de Güímar has become one of the highlights of Güímar’s carnival, growing in popularity each year since the first witches took to the street in 1992.

The question in some people’s minds will be ‘do the witches actually ‘dress up’ like the one on the poster?’

You’ll have to go along to Plaza de San Pedro Apóstol de Güímar at 9pm on Friday 24th February to find out for yourself.

You have to think of ‘carnaval’ as a bit like Quentin Tarantino’s movie Pulp Fiction. The last scene in that movie was of John Travolta and Samuel Jackson walking, with frostbite-inducing coolness, out of a diner…but that wasn’t actually the end of the story. In chronological terms that scene really took place half-way through the film.

Similarly Santa Cruz holds its closing parade (Coso Apoteosis) today, but don’t pack away those fishnets and false boobs yet because it’s not the end of Carnaval. There are another five days of wild street parties and outrageous fun to enjoy at the island’s biggest celebrations in Santa Cruz and Puerto de la Cruz.

If you’ve never been before here are some essential tips worth knowing before taking the plunge into the hedonistic and bizarre waters of a carnival street party.

Street Party Preparation
Wrap a boa around your neck (I meant a feather one, but a constrictor would definitely have more impact) and stick a sparkly cowboy hat on your head and you’ll immediately feel part of carnaval. With a bit of creative thinking you can blast straight into the equivalent of carnaval’s premiership – when people want to have their photo taken with you. Face paint is ideal for achieving unique results. Think topical movies for an eye-catching look. At last night’s street party in Puerto a quartet decked out as N’avi from the movie Avatar were the stand-out costumes of the night.

When to Arrive
Don’t turn up at a street party much before midnight – even that’s a bit early. Street parties don’t hit their stride till between 1am and 2am. If you’re like me it can take superhuman effort to start getting into fancy dress at 11pm – last night it was touch and go. Going out to party at midnight on a Monday night just seemed to go against the grain. But once you arrive in the middle of carnaval’s in-yer-face-assault of colour, noise and ‘is that a he, or is that a she?’ costumes, time is banished to another dimension.

What to Drink
Surprisingly drink is very cheap from street kiosks at carnival. Cañas (glasses of beer) are usually €1 and combinados (spirit and mixer) around €3.50. It’s easy to get completely caught up in the carnaval spirit. A bit of pacing is advisable if you want to last the course as spirit measures are seriously potent. A couple of years ago a friend matched our beer-drinking glass for glass with vodka and tonic combinados . After about an hour and a half we could have poured her into a glass – for her the carnaval was well and truly over.

What to Expect
Street parties are loud, brash and seriously addictive fun. They are also a people-watcher’s Nirvana. At their zenith, around 3am, they can feel as though the whole world has put on fancy dress and joined the party.
Last night I was jostled, bumped, flashed at, hugged and kissed by all manner of odd looking creatures which shared one thing in common…they all had big beaming smiles splitting their surreal features. Watch out for hobbit-sized teenage Canarian girls who barge through the crowds at elbow level like Tasmanian Devils – they’re the biggest threat to the drink in your hand.

…And Finally – What Time do the Street Parties End?
Officially the music is supposed to stop at around 5am during the week and 6am at weekends, but that doesn’t mean the party stops.  I usually drag myself away from the multi-coloured madness somewhere between 4am and 5am. But I’ve known friends reluctantly stagger out of popular carnaval bars at 8am – clearly I’m only a lightweight.

¡Viva La Fiesta!

Barely have the Ayuntamientos (Town Halls) in Santa Cruz and Puerto de la Cruz taken down the Christmas lights than they’ve been back on their ladder trucks installing the carnival lights.
Aligned to Easter, Carnaval (Spanish spelling) is early this year and many of the run-up events have already started.

Visitors will find their evenings this week being impregnated with the sound of a-capella songs of interminable length and indeterminate tune accompanied by the occasional blast on toy trumpets.
Known as Murgas, these ornately costumed groups of clowns (groups can be 50 or more strong) belt out political satire in nightly competitions to determine the best. Singing to packed audiences of Canarios who apparently can’t get enough of this stuff, the appeal of the Murgas is a mystery to me. A novelty the first time I saw them, their attraction waned after roughly 20 minutes. Since then I’ve had 6 years of them filling the TV screen nightly for weeks before, during and after Carnaval. Someone told me that if you could understand what they were singing you’d think they were good; I disagree; I still find them slightly less entertaining than watching the traffic lights change. Still, each to their own and if you want to catch them you’ll find them appearing nightly all over the north of the island.

Next on the Carnaval agenda will be the election of the Carnaval Queens; a much more spectator-friendly event in my opinion.
I’m never entirely sure what the judging criteria is for these events; the girl, the costume or the combination of the two but in any case it makes for a fabulous spectacle. The scantily clad girls appear on stage one at a time, their goosebumps rapidly disappearing as they work up a (very feminine no doubt) sweat dragging their extraordinarily elaborate costumes to the front of the stage. Frequently they can’t manage to gather enough momentum to make the journey and have to be rescued by roadies who presumably have to undertake some sort of life-threatening knock-out competition to win a place on this gig.

The real hard core of Carnaval gets underway next weekend with the Opening Parades. Santa Cruz hold theirs on the Friday evening and Puerto’s is on Saturday evening.
For spectators, this consists of getting to a good spot at least half an hour before the procession is due to start and standing there for a couple of hours while endless diminutive Canarios push in front of you and then invite the other six members of their family to join them.
The parades are colourful, loud and exhilarating and if you’re not in the mood to slip into fancy costume, down a couple of measures of rum and salsa down the street at the end of it then maybe Carnaval isn’t for you.
Whatever else you do, please do not put your fingers in your ears and grimace as the drummers pass by; it’s annoying and downright rude.

After the parades it’s party, party, party every night until dawn and if you want to really understand what this stuff is all about, plunge headlong into the hedonism. On the other hand, if you’ve just booked a quiet, relaxing, away-from-it-all holiday anywhere near the centre of proceedings in Santa Cruz and Puerto de la Cruz… try for a refund – quick.

Wednesday sees the Burial of the Sardine taking place. Thousands of ‘widows’ (most of them men) attired in black dresses, hats and veils with various naughty toys barely concealed in stocking tops and garters, follow a funeral cortège for a giant papier mâché sardine wearing red lipstick and false eyelashes. Did I mention that Carnaval was surreal?
The cortège ends with the sardine being set alight accompanied by a fantastic fireworks display.
The closing parades are on Tuesday in Santa Cruz (although the parties continue until Saturday) and on Sunday in Puerto de la Cruz.
Of course, after that there are still some parties and probably another month of Murgas on the TV.

When the main events have settle down, a mini version of Carnaval rolls out to the rest of the island, even to the south where you can catch events in Los Gigantes and Los Cristianos.
Get the full low-down on the history, events and 2010 timetable for Carnaval on Tenerife.