Trinidad and Tobago

Sensory overload is insufficient to describe the Queen's Park Savannah on Carnival Tuesday. Thousands of costumed masqueraders in dozens of bands form pulsing sections of color on the dusty path leading to the judging point, the line snaking back as far as the eye can see. The driving sound of steel bands fills the air and barely competes with the throb of massive music trucks blaring soca.

The faces in the waiting throng reflect every imaginable ethnic background. Since the wee hours, they have slogged through packed streets to reach this point. Once past the judging area—champions or not—they will continue their musical march until their feet can take no more. On an island built on trade, where the roads are usually packed with honking cars, today the traffic lights are off as Trinis ecstatically celebrate life with a multicultural human traffic jam.

These lush islands lay claim to being the economic powerhouse of the Caribbean. Vast oil and gas reserves have led to a high standard of living, where tourism is not the mainstay of the economy. Indeed, the word "tourist" is seldom mentioned here; the preference is for the much friendlier "visitor." Trinidad's Northern Range is thought to be part of the Andes in South America (connected to the mainland as recently as the last Ice Age). This geological history helps explain why the range of flora and fauna is much greater than on other Caribbean Islands.

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