Kara and Nate Buchanan attend the Aruba Carnival grand parade during their last day in Aruba while visiting for friends' wedding. The vlog captures the energetic atmosphere — dancers with elaborate costumes, loud speakers, moving drink carts between groups, and long parade duration (the hosts note they spent ~2.5 hours there). They reflect briefly on Carnival's cultural roots (connection to pre-Lenten celebrations and the King Momo tradition) and local customs (stores giving free T-shirts for purchases).
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It's our last day in Aruba. We've been here all week celebrating our friends Aaron and Cole getting married here. But we're going out with the bang. Today is the last carnival celebration.
The people in Aruba have been partying for the last six weeks. And today is the grand parade. Last year, during this time we were in Bolivia and we celebrated by doing a giant foam fight.
This year here in Aruba, from what we understand, the there's tons of dancing in the streets, there's a big parade and lots of people wearing feathers and really interesting costumes. It's going to be crazy. Also, the first day we were here, we were staying with friends and we went to the grocery store to buy groceries for the week. And if you spent $100 at the grocery store, so if you spent too much money at the grocery store, they gave you a free carnival T shirt.
The parade doesn't start for another hour. We got here a little early, but people are already starting to line up.
Hello.
We follow these two guys in sparkly suits to where we think the parade is starting. We're not sure we're following the music.
Here it is. It's starting.
We think this is about the fifth.
Time we thought it was starting.
It's.
The speakers are so big. I feel like I'm never going to be able to hear again.
I seriously think we have the best spot because it like starts right here. Everybody's like really energetic and fresh and not tired yet and dancing with it.
Like I said, we're at the very.
Beginning of the parade.
But so far what we've learned is.
In between each group of performers, there's a moving bar.
Like a person pushing this little cart with drinks and cups. And every single dancer has a cup.
In their hand, I guess to help.
Them get to the end of the parade.
Cuz this thing is so long, I.
Don'T know how they're going to make it.
So he hit.
Starting to slow down.
But thankfully one of the carts was passing out an energy drink.
We are two and a half hours in. There's still no end in sight. We both had all of the sun we can handle. I think we're both completely fried. I don't know how the dancers do it.
I seriously don't. They have been going for so long and I've been dancing too, and I'm tired and I've just been staying in the same spot.
From what we hear, Carnival goes until 12pm and then they burn some giant something. King Momo in an arena. I have no clue how they last that long.
Also, we never exactly explained what they're celebrating, and that's because we. We don't exactly know. We know that it has to do with, like, the weeks leading up to Lent and the Momo thing that they burn tonight. They use for the ash on Ash Wednesday, which is this coming Wednesday. And I think they just want to have a parade.
I was going to say, at the same time, from everything we've read on the Internet, it's really not a religious festival. It's basically just a big excuse to have a party. A bunch of different cultures came to the island of Aruba to work at an oil refinery. And I think that's kind of how the parties got started. And now this is just like a fusion of parties from a lot of cultures around the world.
I think everybody who lives on this island is in the parade. I think everybody else just scammed to watch. There are so many people.
