Curaçao Carnival

Carnival is the loudest, longest, and most beloved season on the Curaçao calendar. It builds from the start of the year, picks up through January and February, and climaxes in the days before Lent, sometimes spilling into early March depending on the date of Easter. For weeks the island lives to a soundtrack of tumba, road march, and roadside speaker stacks, and almost every neighbourhood fields a group, a costume theme, or a float.

The season opens with the Tumba Festival, a fiercely contested music competition held over several nights in Willemstad. Composers and singers premiere new tumba songs, and the winner is crowned Tumba King or Queen, with the victorious tune becoming the unofficial road march that drives every parade that follows. It is the musical engine of the whole season.

The grand parades

The visual peak comes with the parades. The Gran Marcha (Grand Parade) is the marquee event, a marathon procession of feathered and sequinned costumes, brass and percussion, decorated trucks, and dancing groups that winds through the streets of the capital for hours. Smaller and themed parades, children's parades, and the late-night, mischievous jump-up processions run throughout the season across different districts.

• Tumba Festival: the song contest that sets the season's anthem.
• Gran Marcha: the headline grand parade through Willemstad.
• Jump-ups: informal evening street parties where the crowd dances behind the music.
• Farewell of King Momo: the symbolic Carnival king is paraded and ceremonially burned to close the season.

Base yourself near Willemstad to be within reach of the main parades, then recover on the calm leeward beaches like Jan Thiel Beach in between events. Arrive early to claim a kerbside spot, keep cash handy for food and drink stalls, and pace yourself: this is a season, not a single day.