Ring Ring! Hello, you there? The call of carnival rings year-round in the Caribbean. Beyond the lure of flamboyant costumes and dancing in the streets, carnival is the region’s most significant cultural event.
Carnival is a Catholic festive season that occurs before the liturgical season of Lent. The main events typically occur during February or early March, during the period historically known as Shrovetide (or Pre-Lent). Carnival typically involves public celebrations, including events such as parades, public street parties and other entertainments, combining some elements of a circus. Elaborate costumes and masks allow people to set aside their everyday individuality and experience a heightened sense of social unity. Participants often indulge in excessive consumption of alcohol, meat, and other foods that will be forgone during upcoming Lent.
According to the National Geographic here are five of the region’s most iconic carnivals.
1. Saint Lucia Carnival
When to go : 7-19 July 2022
Saint Lucia Carnival became official in 1947 and packs a significant punch as this small island’s biggest cultural event. Centered in Castries, season festivities include boat ride parties and soca fetes that sell out quickly. Because it’s a summer festival, soca artists from Trinidad, Barbados, Grenada and other neighboring destinations often perform at Lucian Carnival, as it’s affectionately known.
2. Antigua Carnival
When to go : 23 July to 2 Aug 2022
Antigua Carnival has grown in popularity since its official launch in 1957, following years of informal celebrations. More than 80 organized fetes take place prior to the final carnival parade weekend, but visitors should ask about ‘pan yaad hopping’ meet ups, when locals go to watch steel pan players practice at home on weekend evenings these events often turn into parties.
3. Crop Over Festival, Barbados
When to go : 22 July to 2 August 2022
Dating back to 1687, when Barbados was the world’s largest sugar producer, Crop Over Festival symbolizes the end of the harvesting season. It’s also one of the longest-running carnival seasons in the region.
The ‘sweetest summer festival’, as locals call it, kicks off with the Delivery of the Last Canes a ceremony marking the end of the sugar cane harvest season with an elaborate show, from skits to costumed dances and calypso music concerts.
4. Spicemas, Grenada
When to go : 8-9 Aug 2022
Named after the island’s bounty of spices, Spicemas kicks off a season of celebration that lasts from late April through to the second Monday and Tuesday in August.
There’s nothing quite like the sight of the Grenadian Jab Jabs masqueraders whose glistening black oiled-bodies take over the J’ouvert morning parade. They wear helmets with devil horns and drag chains from their bodies, while a smoked herring might protrude from their red painted lips. They lunge and move in jubilance, as a satire of the devilish colonial master but also as a symbol of strength and freedom.
5. Trinidad Carnival
When to go : 16-23 February 2023
Trinidad, birthplace of carnival, drew more than 35,000 overseas visitors in 2019. Masqueraders gather at the key parades of J’ouvert their mud, oil or paint covered bodies dance in the streets from 4am Monday until sunrise followed by Carnival Monday and culminating in Carnival Tuesday or ‘Pretty Mas’ when all the feather, glitter and jeweled costumes emerge.
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