The Police order to abandon the floats and head towards the Texas ranch disconcerted locals and strangers among the many people who participated in the parade and who had to walk to where they had been told along a road without light and not very passable, since in some sections they did not even have sidewalks. This is how a resident of Arrecife, Lucía Martín, describes it, who describes the end of the parade as "chaotic." "We felt abandoned, we don't know why they sent us to that vacant lot in the middle of the darkness."
The opinion of Lucía and those who accompanied her on her float is not the only one. The mayor of Tinajo, Jesús Machín himself, who was in one of the floats of his municipality, does not hesitate to affirm that this last part of the Coso was not well organized, nor was it foreseen by those responsible. "The councilor did not take into account the lack of light," says Machín. Therefore, "people were angry because we had to walk a lot in the darkness of the night and there were many children in the floats until we reached an area that was also poorly lit that did not invite people to continue the party there." And it seems that the custom of the neighbors who go on the floats is to continue the party together until the verbena begins.
The party is over
In this case, it seems that many lost the desire to continue the carnival party, as Plácido Romero, from the float "La Guardia Sexy" of the neighbors of the north, says. "They made us walk so much that you lost the desire to continue the party due to exhaustion." Like the other float builders, Plácido believes that there was terrible organization at the end of the bullring.
Lucía goes further and assures that they felt "abandoned." "We never saw anyone from the organization again, we were hurt that they left us voted, it was chaos." According to those affected, more than three hundred people were forced to undertake a kilometer-long walk after two hours of travel along Avenida de Las Playas.
In addition, in this last section towards the vacant lot, the Local Police urged them to turn off the music and vacate the floats.
For his part, the Councilor for Festivities of the Tías City Council, Alfonso Gopar, assures that there was probably a problem of understanding between organizers and float builders, given that the message should have been expressed better. In short, according to Gopar, what the City Council wanted and should do was ensure the safety of everyone, so at the end of the tour, as the floats entered normal traffic routes, it was necessary for them to be empty. "We did not intend for people to have to walk, we thought that people would stay in the area and would not leave until the parking lot that we set up in the vicinity of the ranch," he says. The councilor, who does not deny that there was some lack of coordination caused by the change of route this year, assures that he welcomes these criticisms in a positive way to try to improve the organization of the next carnival.