Junkanoo

Before sunrise on Boxing Day and again on New Year's Day, Nassau's Bay Street fills with elaborately costumed groups dancing to cowbells, goatskin drums, and whistles in a tradition with roots stretching back to enslaved Africans' rare days off in the colonial era. The costumes - built from crepe paper, cardboard, and enormous imagination - are a full year in the making for the groups competing for bragging rights.