11-12th August 2025
Or maybe, the loudest 48 hours of my life?
Monday Night Mas… Pre-Party!
J’ouvert wrapped up and we had a very short period of quiet. Aound 4pm the crowds start to gather again for the Monday Night Mas…. but really, its not quite that yet… it’s the pre-party to Monday Night Mas!
Trucks journey down the street with batches of revellers in all matching costumes. People sign up to follow a particular party through the streets and generally each group has an enormous DJ truck with a ridiculous amount of speakers which the dancers follow. After the speaker truck there is support vehicles serving drinks and food to their partiers and in some cases, air-conditioned “cool-down” busses. Everyone in the group is wearing matching outfits so you always know who is with which crew. I later learned you need to sign up months in advance to get a spot on these party trucks!
For the folks not signed up there are loads of drink and food stalls all along the main drag and into the town. A lot of people just buy drinks and follow along one of the trucks with music they like which is exactly what we did too.
The trucks don’t seem to be following any sort of preplanned route or have any coordination with other groups really… in fact… what happens when two groups drive… straight into each other? Hahaha an absolute stereo battle that’s what! Eventually one truck turned off its stereo as they directly passed to loud boos from their accompanying partiers.
We saw trucks with themes of green, pink, purple, black and multicoloured all the folks dressed in matching gear. By this point the excitement and energy was infectious! and we’d had some rum haha.
We wound up joining one of the groups and partying through the backstreets to the main road with them. Once we got to the main street, the trucks cleared out really fast to go get ready for the Monday Night Mas – the next parade which is glow sticks and lights galore.
Now, I’d love to tell you all about that parade but Grenadian rum is served like rocket fuel, and 4 rums in had me spinning. We wound up heading back to the boat and woke up with blurry memories of the last few hours haha.
I did briefly wake up around 2am to see crowds of glowing characters making their way past the boat… oh well – next year!
PrettyMas!
Tuesday was a very slow start, and not just for us! The PrettyMas event is the final parade of carnivale and is the event where everyone gets dressed up in amazing outfits of feathers, sparkles and gems! The earlier groups are from the smaller areas of the island; and as the evening goes on the displays get bigger and more extravagant. The groups compete past a series of judges who then announce the winners over the following days. I have no idea what they were judging on or how they picked haha.
I loved all the outfits so much I couldn’t narrow down the photos – so here is a whole bunch!
After the previous night’s efforts, neither of us were feeling like getting into the rum again. So we stayed and watched for a few hours, then headed back to the boat once it got dark and watched the parade go by from the roof.
Being the last day of carnival, the party continued late into the night. I haven’t mentioned as much this time but it was insanely loud (of course!). When sleeping in the boat, if you put a foot or hand against the hull, you could feel the beat vibrating in the wall of the boat. I am genuinely wondering if Grenada has higher rates of deafness 🤔
Carnival has been a wildly intense series of days. The energy and chaos in the air has been incredible.
Recovery
And, now that it’s over… the Wednesday morning after has been very quiet. Only one party boat heading out and minimal traffic. It feels like the whole of Grenada is in bed recovering. Anyone we come across seems to be struggling with extreme lassitude as are we. I don’t think we will move for at least three days while hearing and energy recovers.
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