Every year there are carnival celebrations around the globe as spring arrives. In New Orleans, it’s Mardi Gras on Fat Tuesday. Last week I (sadly) missed the carnival in Trinidad because I was in St. Lucia when the celebration kicked off. Talk about really bad timing on my part. Some St. Lucians, headed for Trinidad, are pictured in the photo (left) wearing St. Lucia’s national colors on their outfits.
Carnival is an excuse to play music loud, to dance and to strut your stuff. There are usually substances available as well.
In the US there is also the Burning Man in Nevada every year which boasts the same sort of vibe as Mardi Gras in New Orleans. However they try, I don’t think that the Americans who flee to the heat of a dry lake in Nevada will be able to top the languid, humid air of the Caribbean spring in Trinidad.
The St. Lucian (teams) should account themselves and their island well and all those hours of the gym will have paid off with another successful three day strut!
I asked friends in St. Lucia why they planned to go to Trinidad instead of the larger and even more unrestrained Rio Carnival. They cited the language barrier and the inability to speak Brazilian Portuguese as the defining reason.
Carnival is now over, and the feathered costumes will have to be put on the shelf for another year. (The costumes cost about US$600 each and some of the more popular regae and steel drum bands can have as many as a thousand dancers, each in similar costumes following the band and dancing)
Yep, you screwed up the schedule… And yes, it's definitely worth seeing! 🙂
Mia Culpa, Old NFO!
Is that a metal bra? Jabba the Hut would be happy.
Oh LL, you haven't lived until you come to my town at the end of "Burning Man". Old and young Hippies covered in a white dust that looks like it will never come off. None of them look like they've had a bath or shower in a week, and smell that way too. They stop here on there way back to the Bay Area looking for a cheap place to stay with a shower.
Odie, I have never been to Burning Man, but the no-shower for a week thing in the heat of August in the Desert seems somewhat less than desirable to me.
Opus, Women really like metal bras (Star Wars being one example, Wagnerian operas with Viking women being another). I can't see, why but it's obvious that they do if they're going to dance in them for 12 hours straight.
Carnival. Bah Humbug.
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