CARNIVAL!!!
Sunday, March 15th, 2009
-Carnival in Rio de Janeiro, the biggest party in the world!
For 5 days and nights a year, everybody goes crazy in Rio. From the 20th till the 25th of February all
companies are closed, the roads are blocked and crowded with drunk people dancing samba in carnival costumes and nobody cares about anything but having a good time. Carnival is more than a party, it’s a way of life fully expressed in those late days of February. And it’s not that carnival only keeps Brazilians busy for those 5 days. Samba schools practice the whole year for the parade and the people spend months saving money and finding the right outfits to enjoy carnival to the fullest. Or as a Brazilian businessman told me:
‘the economic year in Brazil starts in March.’
I asked him why the government never changed the carnival date to January…
‘Because that time we’re too hangover from celebrating New Year’s!’
One thing’s for sure, Brazilians love to party!
Carnival in Rio de Janeiro is basically divided into two scenes; ‘the blocks’ and the official parade in the famous Samba-dromo. The blocks are street parties all over Rio. There are more than 50 of them and they all start at different times in different neighbourhoods. It’s basically one car slowly driving through the whole area and thousands of people following the car while dancing and drinking. The blocks in middle class neighbourhoods we’ve been to were totally wild while the upper class blocks were a lot slower. A slow block party is still a much crazier party than carnival in Holland though…
The street-parties in Rio have a great atmosphere…
At the blocks it’s never electronic music that gets people going!
Antarctica beer in a hot and sweaty Rio.
The parade in Samba-dromo is a whole different story. It’s a competition between the 12 (if I remember correctly) official samba schools in Rio who all get an hour to perform for the huge and highly international crowd that pays 180 us$ on average to come and watch the show. One sambaschool performs with 4000 members. It’s huge, colourful and very spectacular. I will just show a lot of videos and pictures, works a lot better than words!
Video from an old Egyptian part of the parade:
The carnival cars are amazing:
They are very original with their performances at times. And it must be very hard work to act for the whole parade like the guys did at this car:
Dancing is in their blood. This cleaning guy gave away a fantastic spontaneous dance performance. The crowd loved it:
The next Micheal Jackson comes from Brazil! VIDEO
Even though the parade took a very long time (started at 9 pm and lasted till 6am… and that’s a lot of samba!) it was very well worth it:
Overview of the end of the Samba-dromo.
For most skyboxes you see at the other side of the road you can’t even buy tickets. They’re owned by sponsors and the government and give the seats away to their important relations.
All people paint their bodies gold just for fun and to say ‘I was there’.. nobody gets paid for it and for most positions you even have to pay!
People in the swan are holding the feathers, amazing…
Pick your princess…
Everything’s spectacular!
What the fuck are the French doing there?
Rumours are that the biggest Samba Schools are being sponsored by the mafia. The Brazilians don’t really seem to care…
Gringos in Rio!
I wasn’t alone..
And then some close-up pictures. This one looks almost fake but it really is a beautiful woman standing on a giant book…
Dressed up imo…
Brazilian Samba!
It was a very spectacular show and fantastic 5 days overall. If you ever have the change to go to Rio with carnival, don’t pass up on it. Just make sure you have some free days after to catch up with sleep…
This was my last blog about my travels in South America, I hope you all enjoyed it! I plan to do some more trips in the coming months so keep an eye on the blog once in a while…
Enjoy life,
Veron
