Carnival Night in Gustavia

Last evening we went into Gustavia for Carnival Night. This Carnival entertainment was described in the local paper (French of course and we translated to English) as an evening of various bands, drums meeting at various points, joining together and a final large parade through the streets of Gustavia. However, it did not quite work out this way. The first troupe we heard warming up off the main street so we headed up the hill to check them out. There was a collection of 20 people, a lot with various drums or bongos, a few people dressed in funny costumes and 1 person playing the conch shell for the musical part. They finally head off down main street, stopping traffic and having a few laughs along the way. Now after about 5 minutes the songs all start to sound the same and the poor conch player has no lip left; but they persevere and head around the streets and harbour of Gustavia. About half way through we spotted another group warming up. Now this troupe looked like it had promise. Mostly because beyond just the drums and bongos they also had a some tambourines, a couple conch players and a trumpet….. Oh Ya! They also had a few of large bottles of Carbbean Rum they were passing around to help get the musicians tuned up. We assumed they would join the first group as advertised! Wrong! They waited until the first group were well out of ear shot and then they started off and they would stop for no reason at all. Anyway in the end both groups met in a market area of Gustavia and played till their arms were tired. We know this because we stopped for dinner about 2 blocks away and were able to hear them over a fabulous dinner at Les Boucaniers on the harbour in Gustavia. Quite the experience. Pictures attached.