Whew, I think I'm recovered now...

Wow, what an experience! First of all, I had never taken a maxitaxi into "town" as people here call the capital city, Port of Spain. So I walked a few blocks and waited for one. I got one right away. I was in the front, crammed in with another person. The windows were open, the soca jams were on the radio, and I was feeling fine. I arrived in Port of Spain about 20 minutes later. With no rush hour traffic and on the bus priority route, it really takes no time at all to get there. Once I stepped out, it was really only a few steps to get to the action, since it was everywhere on almost all the streets of Port of Spain.

Here are some costumes:






I must point out that I did not dress up, but I did decorate my face a bit:



When the parade of bands would stop for some delay or other, us unmasked people were allowed to go in and mingle and dance to the music, but when they were ready to move again, these security people would run up and rope us all back...



Here is a short video of people dancing. Note the Kentucky Fried Chicken in the background. I am NOT kidding when I say you can practically find one on every corner...This will always amuse and sadden me :D





After walking awhile, I stopped at a vendor and got a "bake and shark." Yum, yum, yum. It was a deliciously fried shark meat in a pita-like bread with sauce and veggies. I got mine at a small vendor, but I regret not waiting because later I came upon a self-serve stand that had ALL KINDS of toppings and sauces that I could have put on. There were also vendors selling coconut milk, right out of a coconut (you actually drink the coconut). Also you could find arts and crafts and tons of beer/rum stands. However, anyone chooses to drink tons of alcohol in that heat is insane. I went through 2 bottles of water and couldn't stop drinking water once I got home.

I came upon some of the drumming bands.

Here is a very short, tiny video I took of some of the drumming:




Here is the Queen's Savannah Park which is like a big park in the middle of the city, like a mini Central Park:



I finally, by some brilliant stroke of crazy luck, found Hayley and her masquerade section. She is a miracle! Not only did she "play mas" yesterday all day and then came home and had guests (that would be me and some others at her Carnival lime) and didn't get to bed until after midnight, but she had to get up at 4 a.m. on Carnival in order to be ready to start playing mas (dancing in the parade) again at 6:30 a.m. AND go on until about 6 p.m.! AND she had to go back to work today.

Here are some people really jumping up and jamming.





I hung out with Hayley and her parade section on and off whenever things stopped. When they moved again, I would get kicked out of the "band" by security and so I could follow along on the sidelines. Finally, I was getting hot and tired and my legs were aching from so much walking and dancing. So...I bid my farewells and made the monstrous walk back to City Gate, which is where all the maxitaxis are. When I say monstrous walk, I mean I walked and walked and walked and then I got lost. I wasn't scary-lost, but it was enough so that I just wasn't 100 percent sure I was even walking in the right direction. And sadly there was no choice but to keep going because ALL the streets were blocked off/nonfunctional (no taxis or any way for anyone to drive me where I was supposed to be).

So at long last I made it back to City Gate but looked like a fool when I tried to get on the maxitaxi at the wrong place. An old and very kind policeman had to give me instructions a couple hundred times for finding these stairs to take me on a crosswalk to the other side of the terminal...finally I got it.

I got home with my legs aching pleasantly. The sunscreen did its magic because I wasn't sunburned or sunstroked from walking for hours in the hot tropics. I slept like a baby last night.

So the problem with a four-day weekend is that I had to wait for nearly 1 hour and a half at the bank just to make a simple deposit. Note to self: Don't do those types of errands after a holiday!