Masha du Toit

We went to the Cape Town Carnival last night. It was fabulous!  It was a warm, windless evening, everyone seemed happy and relaxed and the floats were just awesome.

The first real display were these fire-fighters perched on top of their truck, showing off their muscles. You can’t really see in the shot, but they were posturing up there with their shirts off.  That is, the men did. The female fire fighters sat on the truck, looking unimpressed. 🙂

Many of the costumes had lights inside, like this floral skirt:

This was one of my favourites: a magical chameleon. He was huge:

Each float had a troop of dancers behind it. None of my photos of them really came out that well:

This was another great one. Van Hunks and the devil. You can’t really see the devil, but he stood on the float looking awesome in a great big horned headdress. (Van Hunks is the guy who sits on table mountain and smokes a pipe, causing all the clouds.)

A skinny elephant 🙂

This elephant float is probably the loveliest one. There are people inside making the legs walk, and its body is made of foliage:

These guys were awesome too. They balanced the drums on their heads and drummed as they walked.

This float reminded me of that scene in Asterix and Cleopatra, where Cleopatra decides to tell Julius Ceaser what’s what:

And these wonderful pirates and sea-creatures. The pirates had sparkly red hearts visible through their ribs.

Some glowing dragons and sea-creatures:

And that’s that! It was a great evening. Such a good vibe.