Carnival & a Bonfire...

Every year the island of Sint Maarten and St. Martin celebrate with a carnival. The French side had theirs back in February and the Dutch just had their 45th annual carnival celebration in the end of April. We were able to get a good idea of what carnival is all about back on Statia, see here for the carnival parade in Statia. Times that by 1,000 and we have the Dutch carnival here in St. Maarten. Remember there was no starting times or order to things in Statia, well it's no different over here. We tried at 10am when we were told it would start and didn't see any action so we went to the beach and came back at 1 and we were lucky enough to be able to drive right up and park close to where the carnival started.  I was told this was the children's parade, and yes they had one float and one group of children, but then it got a little PG-13. Think Loud, hot and a lot of booty shaking. I loved the costumes and vibrant colours. The music was so loud you could feel it beat in your chest. The kids didn't seem to mind, and once we found some refreshing drinks we were good to go. Since we hadn't had lunch yet, I went up to a food stand to buy some BBQ chicken, it smelt so good. I handed the guy some money but he wouldn't take it. And he wasn't the only stand offering yummy goodness for free, so we got a yummy caribbean BBQ lunch. I guess locals come early to set up theirs tent and BBQ's and share their food.
Two hours later the floats/dancers and trucks were still coming, we had a great time and I think I got my carnival fix for a while.

Later that night we had a bonfire at Simpson Bay (Karakters Beach) with the Harkers and a new students to the island Alexis. The kids had a blast making smores and playing games in the sand. They are already asking when we can have another one.