Carnival 2010

One day, I was walking down the street and this is what I saw. Chain a bike to a pole, that I understand but a chair….















A little further down the road, it became a little clearer; i saw a bench…and another one. This must be for Carnival! It’s starting this weekend. After a while I got the picture. You can sit on a chair, a bench or real luxurious a bench covered with branches so you are protected from the sun! How cool is that!

Carnival consists of five parades and it’s something you have to experience. Walking down the street, hearing very load Music, seeing happy people having a drink in the sun, chairs, benches, coolers, people sitting, eating, drinking, laughing, it’s hard to descibe. Ok..a few pictures….

teen parade

teen parade













adult parade

Of course it seems that I’ve been there and done that, but less is true. I’m still a little to Dutch and got a bit of a culture shock really. Of course, I expected when I had to be at my aunt at 10 a.m., that we would leave right away, get to the parade at 11 a.m., see the parade and be at the beach around 3 p.m.

This is what really happened. I didn’t go to bed before 3 am the night before (Soprano’s Peter’s B-day Party). I arrived at my aunt at 10 am, right on time as a real Dutchy. But we didn’t leave for the carnival till noon. That’s when I started to think ‘I could have been in bed for another 2 hours’. When we got to the parade site, we walked down the street a couple of times, waited, drank some water, ate something (great meal by the way), walked down the street again, took some pictures of extraordinary situations:

Expecting VIP guests? The rest of the street looked like this:

The snake is real & alive!

Real Rastaman

But most of all, I waited and waited, waited some more, put in some ear plugs, finished my bottle of water, got more and more tired, couldn’t stand the heat anymore…



By this time it was 3.30 p.m., still no parade and i’m thinking ‘I could have slept for at least another 6 hours! Finally, at 4 p.m. the first group arrives and I’m dancing and taking pictures. Then the second group, a little less dancing and taking less pictures. After the third group, I’m feeling exhausted, thirsty and overheated.


Sorry to admit, but I bailed; I said goodbye to my family and left for the beach. There it was nice and quiet. I bought myself a frozen strawberry, found a comfortable stretcher, lay down and let the warm sun embrace my skin. Just what I needed the afternoon before the first day at my new job. There will be Carnival next year! I’m glad that I know now, what than to expect…