Feathers, sweat and lots of rum: How to do Trinidad Carnival like a local

After an enforced break during the pandemic, Trinidad’s annual festival of hedonism is set to be wilder than ever next year, writes Claire Dodd

Bird of paradise: Trinidad Carnival is set to be bigger and better next year (Claire Dodd)

There’s a devil on the bus as I make my way back to the hotel. Covered in black oil, mottled with neon pink powder. And he’s fast asleep. It’s 7am, but the air is already thick with heat and the sweet whiff of sweat and rum as a cluster of green cavemen in sodden fur tunics make their way towards the vehicle, a dance still in their step, light-up horns blinking limply. This is the aftermath.

Bird song echoes down the street as the residents of this usually quiet suburb tend gardens in the angular haze of the morning sun, hosing plants, and the occasional returning reveller, who cheers and dances, welcoming the cool-down after dancing since 2 or 3am. Over the city, the frantic throb of basslines rumble on, interrupted by a passing truck whose music is blaring out the lyrics “We don’t party normal”.

Next to me, a man stares absently ahead, his deliberately shredded T-shirt, straw hat and flower lei all entirely spattered with a murky wet rainbow of mud and paint. It’s the silent contemplation only joy, exhaustion, booze and adrenaline can invoke. It’s not your typical Monday morning. But Port of Spain, Trinidad’s capital, is well used to the madness.