On a Saturday afternoon in early February, I wandered to the Jardin, San Miguel de Allende’s central plaza, and stumbled into a Carnival celebration. Throughout the Catholic world Carnival is a big deal, with the idea of exhausting the craziness of people’s behavior so they will be ready for the solemnity of Lent. In Mexico, Carnival is most celebrated in Vera Cruz and Monterrey, but all cities and towns seem to have some version of it. Not being Catholic, I am unfamiliar with these seasons and celebrations, so it is only a limited and personal insight I can share.

There, amid more than the usual vendors of food – hot dogs, hamburgers, ice cream, fresh fruit, roasted corn-on-the-cob – and hawkers of balloons, sombreros, little cloth dolls and plastic toys, were dozens of people selling colorful clownish entities and bags of dyed Easter egg-looking eggs. But these were not your normal edible or decorative eggs… they were cascaronazos!

Cascaron is the Spanish word for shell. Cascaronazo refers to an eggshell, with the innards blown out and filled with confetti and glitter which you then smash on someone’s head, all in good fun. While Mexican children are usually subdued and well-behaved in public, this celebration gives free rein to the inner hellion, busting out and smashing eggs on the heads of parents, friends and strangers, with glee. No head was spared.

Later in the day, at the fancy shopping mall on the hill, I witness a group of high schoolers in Mardi Gras masks, dancing to Brazilian beats of its own musicians, some on stilts, spreading the fun and energy of Carnival before Ash Wednesday calls them to 40 days of Lent.

Do you have any Carnival memories or insights you’d like to share? Please post them in comments below. Thanks!