Friday and Saturday October 19 and 20 is Goombay, a street festival in Key West's Bahama Village. It's a celebration of Caribbean food plus some live music at night.
If you're from Key West, then Goombay is probably fun because you can walk up and down the street in Bahama Village and see everyone you know. Goombay activities include strolling up and down Petronia Street, which is lined with food vendors, then maybe stopping at the end and catching some live music from the sound stage. You're bound to run into everyone at some point in the long hot tunnel of food and the occasional African pottery vendor. It's a good chance to get out and see your neighbors.
For the visitor, Goombay offers the chance to crawl up and down Petronia Street rather than Duval Street. It's a change of pace from the regular hot sticky trudge. You can buy some $5 Arepas, which are from South America. You can buy a mushy stale soft pretzel for $3 (or $4 if you don't count your change). You can buy undercooked chicken on a stick for $5. Then you can top it all off with a $12 drink that's served in a pineapple. But do arepas qualify as Caribbean food? How about fried rice? As for a celebration of Caribbean culture, well it's hard to know where that is. Was it at the jerk chicken booth? Does buying food from a vendor count as celebrating? I feel more Caribbean just eating out at Jamaican Me Hungry on any given day.
On the other hand, the live music was great, and the warm up guy did a great job of getting everyone into the swing of th
ings. Here he is. You definitely can't go wrong with live reggae!The best thing about Goombay is that it's the official start of Fantasy Fest, which is the biggest week of the year in Key West. The crowds aren't here yet (60,000 people are supposed to arrive for Fantasy Fest), but many people attending Goombay are already in the spirit of things. You will see people prematurely wearing beads, some people in costume. Fantasy Fest is so much fun they just couldn't wait to get started. It's the spirit of Fantasy Fest and the live music that infuses Goombay with energy, not the elusive "Celebration of Caribbean Culture".
