What a long day it was yesterday. We walked to the national stadium in time for the listed 1pm start of pageant. Due to earlier rain everything was delayed and things didn’t kick off until nearly 3pm. Once it started it was a bit confused as I think things were out of sequence to accommodate bands that hadn’t yet arrived. The first five bands were what’s called ‘Short Knee’ bands. It is very traditional but from our perspective, once you’d seen one you’d seen them all. The costumes were all very similar. They would come on stage and all stomp around accompanied by a chant to the same rhythm as all the others. For a while we wondered if they would all be like this.
Next came a sort of in between act where the band was made up of several groups. Each group had a theme. A story about vampires and slayers was narrated while each group came onto the stage. In the end it was just more stomping around but with more variety and some falling over and dying.
Then it went into the fancy costume parade proper. The bands had gone to a great deal of effort with their costumes. Each band was again made up of different sections. The band would have an overall them with each section would have a sub-theme. The 
sections would have the same costume, sometimes having a single participant with a very elaborate costume. Each section would have a different colour too. At the end they would all come onto the stage together in a riot of colour.
The music they would dance to was the usual thumping carnival music with the usual jumping and cavorting that comes with it.
One of the bands had had a few cruisers help out and join in. Matt and Karen from Where II took part. Matt played the ultimate tourist by bringing his video camera on stage with him.
We left after the last band played but before the results of the competition were announced so we have no idea who won the costume competition. Our favourite was “Journey to the Temple of the Sun” which had an Inca theme.
We will get to see all the costumes again this afternoon coupled with the steel bands for the final street parade.
We went back to the boat for a quick bite to eat and to get ready for the night mas. This time we put on our ‘Digicel’ teeshirts and carried our red light sabers to join Jim and several hundred other revelers behind the Digicel truck. As a result of the Pageant delays the night mas start was delayed from 6:30 to 8:30. We turned up just after 7 to enjoy the build up. Part of our Digicel gear included a flask into which we could have as much rum and coke as we wanted poured in throughout the night.
Once the procession started we made our way very slowly around the lagoon and into the Caranage. We danced along with all the rest and both of us from time to time were ‘ground’ by strangers. I’m not sure of the right term for this but it reminds me very much of what Bonobos get up to and it’s very groinal. We enjoyed ourselves while adrenalin kept the fatigue at bay. Around midnight Helen began to fade so we left Jim to the crowd and made our back to the boat falling asleep instantly.
Despite the long day and lots of rum last night we’re in surprisingly good form this morning and looking forward to the final procession this afternoon when everything comes together. Given the experience so far this will hardly fail to please.
The one downside of all of yesterday was to learn that one of the other cruising boats anchored near us was burgled last night while they were ashore. Just shows that there are thorns in this bed of roses in paradise and we do need to take care.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3l9vVbyMKQo[/youtube]
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