Rocio Ramirez

Mexico, Jan 6 (EFE).- The Three Kings rode for the first time down the Avenida Reforma and other streets of Mexico City in a spectacle of fantasy and color where sweets and presents were showered on children and adults alike.

The thousands of kids with their parents who attended the parade could also see cartoon favorites like Bugs Bunny, Sylvester the Cat, Tweety, Daffy Duck, Cinderella and her Prince Charming, among others that paraded along on allegorical floats.

Melchior, Caspar and Balthasar rode by on replicas of the horse, elephant and camel which, tradition says, carried the Three Kings of the Orient to Bethlehem more than 2,000 years ago.

Also enlivening the parade, organized by Mexico City's municipal government, were mimes riding unicycles, acrobats and clowns on stilts, as well as a corps of motorcyclists and the mounted police.

Joining in the fun was a typical students' musical group riding atop a Turibus, a picturesque vehicle that goes through the center of town daily, as well as clowns and juvenile celebrities from Mexican television.

Another float that made kids' eyes light up was a public transport bus decorated with traditional toys like pinwheels, rag dolls, balls of all kinds, and in front, cardboard figures of the Magi.

The excited children applauded Melchior, Caspar and Balthasar and thanked them for giving them the presents they had asked for, either in letters sent by ordinary mail or via colored balloons.

Julieta Martinez, 9, who went to the parade with her family, said she felt very excited seeing the Three Kings, although she knew they weren't the real ones, just people dressed up to look like them.

"It only takes a ray of light to make the real Three Kings disappear," Julieta said as she watched the spectacle proceed down the impressive Avenida Reforma.

The parade ended in the park around Cibeles Fountain in the teeming Roma neighborhood, where an enormous bread known as the rosca, half a ton in weight and 140 meters (459 feet) long was shared out among the public.

The so-called "Rosca of the Three Kings" had inside it 1,400 miniature Baby Jesus figures.

The capital's municipal government deployed hundreds of police to patrol the streets where the parade passed, and sent a helicopter to the Zocalo, Mexico City's vast main square, so kids could see it and take pictures of it.

The tradition of breaking the "Rosca of the Three Kings" bread dates back 400 years, when in the time of the viceroy, Spaniards began to introduce it to the natives.

Another enormous rosca bread 3.8 kilometers (2.3 miles) long, claimed by locals to be the world's biggest, was savored Saturday in the town of Texiutlan, in the central state of Puebla.

And in the southern city of Oaxaca, scene of a socio-political conflict that has lasted seven months, dozens of children celebrated Three Kings Day with a march through the streets demanding freedom for a number of jailed activists and the "end of the repression," as the little ones accompanied by adults shouted.

"We want schools, we want work, we want hospitals, we don't want troops," the children of Oaxaca cried. EFE

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