Samba !

Aaaaaah, Rio's Carnival. Samba, sun, joy, sexy women wearing feathers dancing and parading on crazy rythms and under rains of glitters...

               The Sambodromo during the technical preparation parade (without costumes)

Ok, I might disappoint you, but Carnival isn't only this, and more than anything, it is this if you have the physical strength and the money for it.

Let me explain. Carnival is made of two parts. One is the parade and the other are the streets "blocos".

The parades. Rio counts twelve samba schools that parade at the Sambodromo all nights of the Carnival's weekend. Starting around 9pm and usual lasting until the early morning. The cost to assist there changes depending on your placement but goes from 300 reais (about 75 euros !) and can get pretty high.

Each school has ninety minutes to cross the Sambodromo. They are graded by judges over their music (each year, each school composes a new Samba with a different theme), their dance, their costumes, their creativity for the cars, their lights, their general beauty... Well over EVERYTHING!

The wednesday after the end of the carnaval (tuesday), around 4pm, the classment gets out. But that is not it. On the next saturday, dia das campeas (day of the champions), the best five schools parade one last time.

                            

                      A really good marching street bloco in the Santa Teresa neighborhood

The backstage of all of this is the popular carnival, the "blocos". They are bands, on trucks or foot that walks the streets, or on stages, well in anyway outside in the street. They can last from a few hours to the entire day, they are a few hundreds in all of Rio, the programs are very confusing and change all the time...

And there, everybody goes dressed up, with great make up full of glitters, pearls... The idea is to manage to get out of the house pretty, knowing that in one hour you'll be soaked in sweat or water (when nice neighbors decide to wet the streets, the pearls are gonna fall quite fast, the make up is gonna come off...

The Samba rythms and any other music will embrace you during four days of pure foly, from the early morning for the best of them, until after night fall or even way later...

                                 Going out as dancers in flip-flops !

I loved these days of parties. I didn't succeed in doing as much as I wanted to because of an unfortunate tiredness, but that was an amazing experience, and I am really looking forward to my next Carnival!

I especially liked one thing, alcohol wasn't omnipresent. Of course it was there, and there were a few drunk people, but mostly that quite reasonable, and that made the party so much more enjoyable. Beer was being drunk more as a way to refresh yourself under this strong sun, and anyway we were just drinking down about one bottle of water per hour to not get dehydrated!!!

                                             

                                                Going out as mermaids (with feet ;) )

So here is my small description of the famous Rio Carnival. It's short, and I might not sell it the best way but this is a thing you need to live to understand. Sorry, I guess you will have to come over to see for yourself !

                                    

                                             A night bloco on a stage under the Christ