J'Ouvert has its beginnings with the emancipation of the slaves in the early 1800's. As part of the night time celebrations, they would cover themselves with ashes or mud so they wouldnt be recognized. This evolved to paint, and to minimize the clean up - the group I joined, uses chocolate. It starts around 3 am Monday morning. People congregate at starting points and line up to get covered in chocolate....with as little or as much as they want.
The sound trucks arrive and the bar trucks arrive. These Canadians are veterans of Carnival.... 
There is a lot of security in lime green t-shirts to keep the group of about 1500 people together. They keep an eye on both stragglers and strangers. 
We all have wrist bands (quickly covered in chocolate), red t-shirts and blinky light horns. Our loop took us through Woodbrook and around the Hasely Crawford Stadium (named after the winner of the 100 m at the '76 Olympics in Montreal).
Here is a video clip - it's a bit dark (it is 4:30 in the morning)....
The chocolate tends to run, smear, ooze and by the end of the event, it is pretty much everywhere.
The walk goes on until well past sunrise.
There are several groups out on their own programs but the groups do cross paths occasionally as we walk through the city. Orange paint looks a bit more problematic to remove than chocolate.
You will notice he is carrying 'extra' paint for sharing with others. People arent the only thing that gets covered in paint....this is not my car (thank goodness).
Most people go home and sleep for part (or most) of the day on Monday. I went home, washed off the chocolate and then went out for a day of sailing 'down the islands' and a BBQ in a bay off of the island of Chacachacare - the most westerly island of Trinidad. 
We were escorted by dolphins for part of the way.
It was nice to get off the island for a bit.B.
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