Guavaween is a celebration of Halloween that takes place each year in Ybor City, Florida.

The Guavaween Festival draws thousands of locals and tourists in colorful Halloween costumes to the Tampa Bay area to enjoy parades, food and drinks.

I've read that the beginnings of Guavaween started in the 1800's when a Spanish businessman went to the Tampa area looking for Guava tree forests so that he could create and sell tasty guava jelly and other guava based products.

His guava processing factory never got off the ground, but his story was talked about for many years. Then a writer for a Tampa area newspaper, inspired by the story, suggested "guava" as the theme for an October festival and the idea took off.

So since the late 1970's, the Guavaween Festival has been a annual event in the fun loving city of Tampa.

The mythical Mama Guava starts off the Guavaween Festival with daytime events tailored for families and children including a Family Fun Fest with trick or treating, scavenger hunt, rides, spook story time, children's Halloween costume contest & parade, pumpkin giveaway, and other family friendly entertainment.

The lines for the port o' johns were exacerbated by the delay while people removed the appropriate parts of their costumes.

The easiest way to find a bathroom during Guavaween was to purchase something in a coffee shop, bar, restaurant, or souvenir shop.

Then you became a paying customer with a receipt and the bathroom security guards would happily whisk you towards the facilities.

They would even offer to hold your Halloween costume accessories while you were in the restroom.

Everyone always seemed to really enjoy our "act" so we wore those Halloween costumes for about three years in a row at different Halloween events or parties.