Carnaval de Venezuela

Held in the lead-up to Lent each February, Carnaval is Venezuela's grandest annual celebration, with especially large gatherings in Caracas and coastal towns like Puerto La Cruz, and famously enduring festivities in the town of El Callao, which has run its own Carnival since 1853. Streets fill with Caribbean rhythms — salsa, reggaeton and drums — alongside parades, water fights and improvised street parties that roll on late into the night.

Food is inseparable from the celebration. Arepas sizzle on grills throughout the festivities, stuffed with everything from savoury cheese to spicy shredded beef, while hallacas — a traditional dish wrapped in plantain leaves and packed with pork, chicken and olives — make an appearance despite being more typically associated with Christmas, a sign of just how central the dish is to Venezuelan celebration more broadly. Traditional characters like La Burriquita, a dancer inside a donkey costume dating back to colonial times, add a distinctly Venezuelan flavour to the parades.

The Carnival period closes with the Burial of the Sardine on Shrove Tuesday, a deliberately more sombre ritual marking the transition into Lent — a final contrast to several days of otherwise unrestrained celebration.