Crop Over Festival

For five weeks every summer Barbados celebrates Crop Over, an exciting and vibrant extravaganza of music and masquerade, history and culture to mark the end of the sugar cane cutting season. Festival origins can be traced back to the 1780s, when Barbados was the one of the world's foremost producers of sugar, and a festival was held at the culmination of each sugar season. For the entire two months life for many islanders is one big rum-fueled party including a calypso competition, parades, and colorful costumes.

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Talk about surreal: you're seated within a huge audience in the lush green hills of eastern Barbados, looking out at the turquoise sea crashing onto the shore nearby, and an enormous Calypso battle is raging before you. The Conquerers, Untouchables, House of Soca, Pioneers, and other Calypso bands are competing for the titles of Party Monarch, Road March Monarch, and Pic-O-De-Crop Monarch in the wildly colorful Crop Over Festival, which dates back to the 1780s, when Barbados was the hub of sugar production worldwide. The parades of Grand Kadooment Day, in particular, are not to be missed.

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