Carnival in Mazatlán, a tradition going back more than a century, is called the city's "maximum fiesta" with good reason. Every native mazatleco has carnival memories from early childhood on, and enthusiasm for the traditional feast before the fasting season of Lent continues right through a person's lifetime. Of course, Mazatlán's carnival isn't a mere traveling fair with a few games and rides. Of all the carnivals in México, and they are numerous, this is the biggest, the splashiest, the most famous. Carnaval Mazatlán (to use the Spanish spelling) is one of the largest pre-Lenten celebrations in the hemisphere. Newcomers to town should know that the local festivities rank close behind Rio de Janeiro and New Orleans in size and scope. Come March 2-7 of the Year 2000 this mammoth fiesta will be well into its second century as a Mazatlán observance. Actually, the custom of a carnival in Mazatlán the week before Ash Wednesday goes back much further than 102 years, but the first organized fiesta with pageants and parades as well as monarchs to reign over it took place in 1898. The earliest formal carnivals (of 1898 and 1899) had kings instead of queens, for the girls of that Victorian era were too shy and modest to enter the spotlight. Nor would their conservative parents allow it. It took an American girl, Winnie Farmer, to break the ice as Mazatlán's 1900 carnival queen. The 102nd year of carnival will mark a 100th birthday for the custom of selecting pretty young women as queens of carnival. For the special anniversary, and the millennium, 10 candidates are vying for the title of Queen of Carnaval Mazatlán 2000. To qualify for judging, each must make a financial contribution to help defray the expenses of carnival by selling 50,000 pesos worth of raffle tickets on a new car. Those who pass that test become finalists to be judged on the basis of beauty and poise in an

evening program scheduled for Feb. 19 in the Angela Peralta Theater. Codetur, the local organizing committee, is promising a bigger, more dynamic, more youth-oriented blowout as the annual observance of carnival enters the new millennium. Codetur president Raul Rico has announced the "Carnaval del Milenio," will have parade floats and pageants that carry out that thousand-year theme. The Year 2000 celebration also will take on an even more international perspective with the arrival of participants from Mazatlán's sister cities in the United States (Seattle, Santa Monica and San Antonio), from Canada, from Central America, and from Osaka, Japan (where Carnaval Mazatlán recently sent a delegation to their 21st century celebrations). Picking up on the millennium theme will be the allegorical oversized papier mache figures adorning lampposts along Avenida del Mar and other major thoroughfares. There will be two parades with more than two dozen floats carrying out the theme, plus rolling bandstands with live music and a number of "comparsas" or costumed marching units. There will be pageants with top-flight entertainment in the Teodoro Mariscal baseball stadium. There will, as always, be fireworks. And in Olas Altas-- the traditional heart of the carnival-- there will be food fairs, street dancing to the tune of Mazatlán's typical tambora bands as well as to rock and salsa music, and a Saturday night naval battle fought in fireworks. The mock ship-to-shore combat is a long-time local observance that represents the 1864 Battle of Mazatlán. In that incident the then-tiny Mexican outpost successfully repelled a French warship and prevented the landing of hostile troops. For a while, anyway. The invaders eventually made it, but they had to get here marching overland.

Carnival 2000 is Coming