🎭Barranquilla Carnival

About Barranquilla Carnival

The Carnaval de Barranquilla is Colombia's biggest folkloric celebration and one of the largest carnivals in the world, second in the Americas only to Rio. Held in the Caribbean port city of Barranquilla in the four days before Ash Wednesday, it fuses European, African and Indigenous traditions into a riot of music, dance and costume. UNESCO inscribed it as a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity in 2003.

The fiesta opens with the Batalla de Flores, a Battle of Flowers parade of flower-decked floats, and rolls on through the Gran Parada de Tradición, music, comedy and folklore. Dancers move to cumbia, mapalé and porro, while iconic characters — the long-nosed Marimonda, the Monocuco and the Garabato — fill the streets. It closes with the symbolic burial of Joselito Carnaval, mourning the end of the party.

Because Carnival is tied to the Christian calendar, its dates move each year, falling on the Saturday before Lent, fifty days before Easter. The countdown above tracks the next celebration automatically — add Barranquilla Carnival to your own countdown page and count down to the city's motto, "Quien lo vive, es quien lo goza".