Once again this Memorial Day Weekend, the annual two-day festival known as Carnaval marched, samba'd, salsa'd, and otherwise danced its way through the Mission district, both Saturday and Sunday. SF's version of Carnaval, which obviously isn't tied to Fat Tuesday, is a hugely multicultural affair that brings together Mexican Aztec performers, Brazilian-style samba schools with up to 300 dancing members, Caribbean dancers from all over, African drummers, Polynesian dancers, Japanese drummers, and all kinds of other dance and celebratory traditions from Central and South America.

This year's theme was “¡Viva La Madre Tierra! / Long Live Mother Earth!,” and the Chron notes, freebies handed out to crowds of thousands included clothespins — to encourage people to conserve energy by line-drying their laundry — and reusable shopping bags. The latter idea came out of a survey conducted outside the Mission Street Safeway and Casa Lucas Market which found that, despite the 2014 plastic bag ban, 86 percent of shoppers still forget to bring their own bags.

Check out all these colorful photos from this year's festivities from photographer Erik Wilson.

Also, here's some video via Mission Local.