Carnival

Check out the bird!

We’re back in Trinidad! It feels almost like home. Jamie was offered some work here and so we sailed from Grenada 2 days after Becky and Andy left us. It was a lot more speedy to return to, than to leave and we made it back in 14 hours. I wasn’t really relishing the idea of returning but so far it has been good. We’ve met up with some friends and made some new ones too, so our social life has started to flourish. And we got to see the world famous Trinidad carnival.

Lady in red

Carnival procession

Our first taste of the carnival was ‘Jouvert’ held on Sunday night. We drove through to Port of Spain, the capital, with friends and spent a wild night drinking and dancing in the streets. Although we only managed to stay awake until 3am and the floats arrived at 4am we didn’t feel too bad because we got to see them eventually and the whole ‘street party’ was what we were all looking forward to the most. It was a bit like a festival only we didn’t camp out.

Procession passes the judges

On Tuesday a group of us went to Port of Spain and pretty much spent the whole day drinking beer and eating street food while we watched hundreds of bright and beautifully clad people wearing amazing costumes all taking part in the carnival parades. Soca  music blared from the floats, people danced and we all had a lovely day. The ladies here don’t seem to be at all self concious of their bodies, some enormous bums (and some enviably lovely ones) were on display in the tiniest of sparkly bikinis and Jamie took great delight in photographing as many of these as he could…

Spoils of war

Whilst walking back to the car we found a variety of discarded carnival outfits which we pounced on eagerly like soldiers collecting the spoils of war,  guffawing drunkenly while we tried to work out what each item was and which part of the body it was supposed to fit.