CARNAVAL DE GUADELOUPE

This is undoubtedly the archipelago's most important festival, with the whole of Guadeloupe taking part! The Sunday following Epiphany kicks off the festivities, which last until Ash Wednesday. Days and nights follow one another in frenzy and joy.

Costumes rival each other in inventiveness. After Rio de Janeiro and Louisiana, the parades in Pointe-à-Pitre and Basse-Terre are said to be the most elaborate. Every year, the parades tend to fall further behind schedule. But the spectacle is no less enchanting! In the specialized boutiques and dressmaking workshops, preparations are made almost a year in advance. From romantic to modern, from sexy to naïve and DIY... Each group's rhinestones and lights will shine for the duration of the parade. Some of these costumes are very expensive. Each group gives free rein to its imagination or sticks to a theme, with shimmering disguises, playing its part a little better each day, ensuring its own staging... A time for letting off steam, Carnival remains the ultimate outlet for differences. During this period, blacks, whites, Indians, Békés and Mulattos all move about anonymously. And, as in the ferias of southern France, the desire to be together is unleashed.

The three most important days of Carnival each have a dominant color, which is reflected in the costumes worn by the population.

Jours gras. The great carnival parade that begins on Greas-Saturday, inaugurates Carnival time and keeps the streets busy until Ash Wednesday. On Dimanche-Gras, the parade arrives in the pedestrian zone of Pointe-à-Pitre. On Lundi-Gras, all the participants - organized into festive associations, festival committees, dance companies, bands and brass bands - gather in Basse-Terre. On Mardi Gras, parades parade through several communes. Le Grand Vidé in black and white brings the week's festivities to a close.

Brûlé Vaval. Eight weeks after the start of Carnival comes the "Brûlé Vaval", which signals the end of the festivities on Ash Wednesday: the effigy of Vaval, king of Carnival, is burned at nightfall in Place de la Victoire in Pointe-à-Pitre and other towns, in front of festival-goers dressed in black and white and surrounded by his mourners, who shout, gesticulate and mime grief. The character of Vaval, a giant puppet, changes face every year according to current events. He may represent a public figure, a politician...