Euphoria on the streets as Tobago Carnival ends

Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Mud and oil made way for beads and feath­ers, but the eu­pho­ria on the streets of Scar­bor­ough en­dured as To­ba­go Car­ni­val 2026 end­ed in splen­dour yes­ter­day.

Not even a heavy down­pour could rain on the an­nu­al fes­ti­val’s pa­rade, as thou­sands of ju­bi­lant mas­quer­aders in shiny cos­tumes jumped and danced to so­ca.

The tra­di­tion­al mas bands were on the road by mid­day, mak­ing their way along the var­i­ous judg­ing points.

Jab jabs and blue dev­ils lin­gered around from J’Ou­vert, while young mas­quer­aders al­so en­joyed their time to shine with cos­tumes from Mar­cellin Nedd and As­so­ciates.

The sweet sounds of steel­pan ac­com­pa­nied the fan­cy sailors who chipped along with their to­bac­co pipes threat­en­ing to fall out of their mouths.

Fog An­gels, ar­guably the biggest band in To­ba­go, en­tered down­town Scar­bor­ough around 4 pm with So­ca Ti­tans win­ner Tam Tam aboard one of their trucks. His 2026 hit, Fol­low Me, con­tin­ues to mash up on the road and with his vic­to­ry as­sur­ing him a spot in the 2027 So­ca Monarch semi­fi­nal, he will be a force to be reck­oned with.

Trinidad res­i­dent and first-time mas­quer­ad­er Lenore Singh, who played in the band Abun­dance, said she had been won over by the To­ba­go Car­ni­val ex­pe­ri­ence and will be back. She said the band’s 2026 theme, First Spir­it, in trib­ute to the in­dige­nous peo­ple, caught her eye and made the choice of bands easy.

Abun­dance band­leader Car­lana Ram­lochans­ingh has been on the road in To­ba­go for the last three years and says the event has been grow­ing in pop­u­lar­i­ty. With 60,000 vis­i­tors this year, she said on­ly the ac­com­mo­da­tion sec­tor need­ed to step up to meet the grow­ing de­mand.

Mean­while, Amer­i­can teenag­er Olivia Sover­all, who is here with her fam­i­ly, said the ma­jes­tic cos­tumes left her in awe.

“I like see­ing the cos­tumes and how shiny every­body is. My dad was born here and he likes tak­ing us to Car­ni­val,” Sover­all said.

She said To­ba­go is the ide­al va­ca­tion spot, with Car­ni­val be­ing a tremen­dous bonus.

Mean­while, Eng­lish­man Luke Os­car, whose Trinida­di­an grand­fa­ther was part of the Win­drush gen­er­a­tion, said he feels at home in To­ba­go. Draped in a na­tion­al flag, he and his friends danced in the streets while wait­ing for the bands along the Scar­bor­ough Es­planade.

While fa­mil­iar with Not­ting­ham Car­ni­val in Eng­land, he said this was his first car­ni­val in the West In­dies.

“Noth­ing com­pares to this car­ni­val, un­be­liev­able vibes,” he said.

An­oth­er UK tourist, Ay­la Ben­jamin, said she has been to To­ba­go be­fore, but nev­er for the Car­ni­val. She said she could not miss it this year and ex­pects to be frol­ick­ing in a band in 2027.

“The mu­sic, the vibes, the rum, it’s just a hap­py at­mos­phere,” she said.

A wel­come ad­di­tion to the car­ni­val was the rov­ing med­ical teams who were kept busy on Sat­ur­day, with the in­tense heat caus­ing a few rev­ellers to suf­fer from de­hy­dra­tion and heat stress. How­ev­er, a down­pour yes­ter­day al­lowed spec­ta­tors and mas­quer­aders cool­er con­di­tions to en­joy the cel­e­bra­tions.

Po­lice were again out in full force, with no ma­jor in­ci­dents re­port­ed.