The story
Carnaval de Moca in Moca
Moca, the Cibao valley's City of Flowers, holds a February Sunday carnival of local comparsas parading past its landmark neo-Gothic cathedral, without a single branded local character. The event serves mostly the surrounding coffee- and cacao-growing region rather than international visitors, staying modest in scale throughout its Sunday run.
Moca, capital of Espaillat province in the fertile Cibao valley, calls itself the City of Flowers and Perpetual Help, a nod both to its agricultural abundance and to the neo-Gothic Cathedral of Nuestra Senora del Perpetuo Socorro that dominates its central square.