Estrellita at Carnival, Grenada 07
Wednesday - August 22, 2007•Views: 6647••
We got to Grenada just in time for Carnival. We anchored in the Lagoon just a block off downtown St. Georges, and coincidentally right at the start of the parade route.
Carnival is a long celebration complete with Steel Pan Band competitions, parade queen pageants, costume contests and other community activities but the star of the entire show is Monday and Tuesday when almost everything but restaurants and street vendors shut down for the 2 major parades that most visitors think of as Carnival.
Believe it or not the music starts full volume at 3am on Monday morning and the first parade is over by 9am! This first show is a wild party with only about 5 “floats”. Each float is really just a big flatbed truck loaded with a million watts of sound. Playing a based, thump, thump rhythm at full blast, each sound truck is followed by another smaller open truck with barrels of PAINT! And a half dozen kids who pass the paint to anyone who wants some, and not in a container, rather, over their heads and shoulders!
Then these painted kids become the parade as they dance along the parade behind the truck, on the truck or in front of the truck. Sometimes they come up and hug spectators and when you leave the parade, if you had real fun, you will have a little paint from each performance on you. The kids are mostly cool and don’t hug anyone who doesn’t want to join in.
The second day’s parade is more traditional (from our perspective). Still the main feature is a series of open trucks with mega sound systems but rather than youths painted from head to toe you get the traditional display of sequined outfits, stilt walkers and people having fun dancing the parade route.
For our friends in Salt Lake City, how do you think the paint guys would go over in the Days of 47 Parade?
Carnival is a long celebration complete with Steel Pan Band competitions, parade queen pageants, costume contests and other community activities but the star of the entire show is Monday and Tuesday when almost everything but restaurants and street vendors shut down for the 2 major parades that most visitors think of as Carnival.
Believe it or not the music starts full volume at 3am on Monday morning and the first parade is over by 9am! This first show is a wild party with only about 5 “floats”. Each float is really just a big flatbed truck loaded with a million watts of sound. Playing a based, thump, thump rhythm at full blast, each sound truck is followed by another smaller open truck with barrels of PAINT! And a half dozen kids who pass the paint to anyone who wants some, and not in a container, rather, over their heads and shoulders!
Then these painted kids become the parade as they dance along the parade behind the truck, on the truck or in front of the truck. Sometimes they come up and hug spectators and when you leave the parade, if you had real fun, you will have a little paint from each performance on you. The kids are mostly cool and don’t hug anyone who doesn’t want to join in.
The second day’s parade is more traditional (from our perspective). Still the main feature is a series of open trucks with mega sound systems but rather than youths painted from head to toe you get the traditional display of sequined outfits, stilt walkers and people having fun dancing the parade route.
For our friends in Salt Lake City, how do you think the paint guys would go over in the Days of 47 Parade?
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