For some time now Carnival in South Florida has been in two locations, one in Ft. Lauderdale (Broward county) and the other in Miami (Dade county). This year, Miami Carnival Inc. celebrated its 21st anniversary showcasing the beauty and pageantry of Caribbean Carnival with masquerade bands, steel bands, local and international artistes & DJs at Bicentennial Park in downtown Miami. With Trini Jungle Juice crew in town from all parts of the globe, we had to split up - so one team went to Miami Carnival to follow the Generation X band and take in the overall scene.

So once again we found ourselves in downtown Miami, this time looking for the starting point of the parade - which was somewhere near to the American Airlines Arena (AAA) and Bicentennial Park. Luckily we ran into two lovely ladies from Gen X who told us they were heading to the band, and we followed them to 2nd Ave and 25th Street. Man, we walked a good way from the AAA before finding the band... but that only meant that the parade route was decently long enough for one to have a good jump up!

Eventually we started to see some action up ahead and met up with the parade of bands. Before finding Gen X we passed through a few other bands such as TnT Misfitz, Wassi Ones and a Camouflage band. When we did find Gen X you could tell it was Carnival time. This was by far the biggest band in the parade - reported to us as having over 400 revelers! Lalo's truck was on full blast with no neighbours to complain and this was followed by a 'drinks truck' - the greatest Carnival invention since the 'goatskin pouch.' :-)

For some of the TJJ crew, having never actually been to the Miami Carnival parade we did not know what to expect, and did not expect much - but boy we were wrong! The costumes were well made and looked just as good as anything from Poison, Harts or Tribe and the masqueraders had a 'helluva' time playing Mas! You could not tell them they were not on their way to cross the stage in the Savannah!! Even the sun was blazing hot like a Carnival Tuesday!! MIA Carnival might very well be the best Carnival in the U.S. Okay, no more long talk... run de big Kevin Lyttle tune - Home for Carnival. Enjoy de pics!