Carnival!



Trying to get everyone lined up for the start of  'Pretty Mas'.

Carnival actually consists of many competitions and parades.  We managed to see most of the parades, which are called 'Mas', short for masquerade.  When I first heard of them, before seeing it in print, I thought they were part of a 'mass', as in Catholic Mass.  Knowing that the catholics invented Carnival, it made sense to me.  Little did I know that Carnival has almost nothing to do with religion anymore.  Most of the Caribbean Islands have a Carnival and they're scheduled so a single tourist could attend all of them, if he so desired.  Spread the wealth, so to speak.  So some of the Carnivals are before Lent and some are after, like say maybe August. Anyway, the different 'Mas' stand for different things. 

For example on Monday there were 3 'Mas':  at 5AM was J'Ouvert or 'Dirty Mas' where large quantities of brightly colored paint are used to turn everyone the same skin color. (I called it the 'Equalizer Mas'.)  Steve and I managed to sleep through this one.

In the afternoon was 'Pagent Mas' or 'Pretty Mas'. The one with the beautiful costumes.  This year the theme was Lead Us Into Temptation.  So the 'Mas' had lots of devils and angels wildly dancing with each other.

Late that night was 'Monday Night Mas', which we got to participate in.  Different businesses sponsored groups of dancers and we were in the Carib group. Carib is the Windward island's beer maker, so it was fitting.  We were outfitted with lighted, flashing, fuzzy hats, flashing beer mugs and light sabers, also flashing.  We, along with 1198 others in the Carib group, danced and stomped and thumped our way along behind the semi playing the music and in front of the beer truck.  The music was chest compressing loud bass,  I was sooooo glad we had earplugs. This was a wild time and it only got wilder as the beer, bottles and pot were passed and the night got late.  We arrived back at the marina sweat  and beer soaked, foot sore and exhausted.  We had a great time and now we have lighted hats, mugs and sabers for future use!



So much color!

The King of Carnival.

The Queen of Carnival.

Pretty Mas.

We woke up today to the sound of silence.  It's a quiet, normal, back to work kind of day. FINALLY.  We've been in the Port Louis Marina for a week now, and the thumping music has been non-stop since we got here.  I usually like the live music we can hear from the boat at anchor or in port and I liked this, the first thousand times.  For some odd reason, Grenadians seem to have only one song and it's played over and over and over. For. Days. At. A. Time. It goes like this"  DaDaDADadaDaDaDaaaaSoggyDay, DaDaDaDAAADaDaaaaSorryDay,  DaDaDaDaDADaaaDaDaThursday.......It ends with a whole long section involving 'Tsunami', which gets shouted ALOT.  I tried and tried to figure out the words. I even asked the people around me. They all said something different.  Maybe next year.