Las Palmas Carnival is a long-standing tradition on the island, although Franco did his best to spoil the party until his death in 1975. Many of the events are fancy dress parties and beauty pageants in which a carnival queen, a children's carnival queen and even a "more mature" carnival queen are elected. Naturally, with that amount of lipstick and glamour, the drag queens come in hot pursuit of a title.

Each year the Drag Queen contest takes a different theme, which in 2009 is "Pirates" (Piratas). The costumes become more and more outrageous as the years go by and the competition gets increasingly fierce. Concerts by internationally renowned stars like Grace Jones and Gloria Gaynor have fuelled its popularity. In fact, in the last few years there have been so many entrants that now a pre-selection is made prior to the main competition.

Merely getting dressed up to the nines is not enough to be crowned queen of Las Palmas Carnival. Contestants must also sing a song of their choice to the adoring crowds. Such efforts reap great rewards, as all the crowned queens take pride of place on the grandest floats that parade down the streets of Las Palmas during the main parade - the Gran Cavalgata .

The pre-Lent Carnivals on the Canary Islands differ from those on the mainland, which usually stop on Ash Wednesday. The Canary Islanders stall their period of Lenten abstinence for a few days until the velatorio (28 February in 2009 at the Las Palmas Carnival), which is a day of mourning for the sardine - the symbol of good living and carnival. A huge sardine is pushed through the streets as everyone marches behind in funeral costume. The following day, the giant sardine is buried in the sand on the beach to a fanfare of fireworks, bonfires and, of course, all-night parties.

Please visit the Las Palmas Carnival website for a full schedule of events.