Carnavaaaal...

...was crazy.
...was beautiful.
...was exhausting.

But first things first. I arrived via a bus connection in Porto Alegre at Florianopolis and went straight to Ilha Santa Catarina where the beautiful beaches are located. Checked into a crappy HI-hostel as it was the only cheap option in town and was welcomed there by some fun Argentinian (again!) room mates. Actually the whole place was full of Argentinians and Chileans and bumping into Brazilians turned out to be hard work. Nevertheless, I spent 3 enjoyable days around the island with these people and would have stayed a lot longer if Carnaval wouldn't have been calling me. So another 17 hours bus ride brought me to "Cidade maravilhosa" aka Rio de Janeiro. Although this was already my second time within a year in this amazing city, it's charme caught me again. The wonderful friendly people, the beautiful urban beaches and the green hills in combination with a chaotic metropolitan environment make it a unique place. Rio is, with all it's positive and negative parts, in my opinion, a city to love.
Headed to Ipanema where I would be staying for a while at a friend's place and it was the first time in a already long travel (now about 6 months) that I felt completely home again. Laundry facilities, Internet whenever I wanted, a fridge with food and, yes, I even had a family. And all this offered by a person I've just met a couple weeks ago in Buenos Aires. That's the spirit I love about Brazil. During the next few days I experience the Carioca life by accompanying this bunch of Brazilians in their daily lives. As they are mostly musicians and actors I went to plenty of events that envolved music. I even was lucky enough to see a live concert by Yamandu who is considered to be the one of the best or even the best guitar player in Brazil. Furthermore, I went to Maracanã to see a football game of the rivaling teams Botafogo and Flamengo (epa Mengo!) and obviously got prepared for Carnaval.
As my friens wouldn't allow me to go to the festivities without costume (and as I also wanted to dress something), I went shopping and became Peter Pan...sort of at least. I have to admit it ws only a light summer version (which is anyways more comfortable at 35° degrees) and many Brazilians even thought I would be a Tyrolese...whatever!
Carnaval can not be explained, it has to be experienced. Music, dancing, singing and plenty of beer are just one part. Getting up after two hours of sleep the next morning is the other side of the medal. As some blocos (the groups gathering people by playing music) start as early as 8am to 9am, and a good one is not to be missed, Carnaval can get really exhaustive. But no matter how tired you are, as soon as the music starts and you dance through the lovely streets of Santa Teresa and see all the colourful costumes any pain is immediately forgotten.
It's a pitty I can't show you too many pictures at the mometn but mostly I just preferred to leave without the camera. (Though I might be able to upload a few more in a couple weeks.) Nonetheless, there are some, but of course they do little justice for all the things I experienced during Carnaval. The only thing I missed was the parade at the Sambodromo where the samba schools compete, but this is just another good reason to come back to Rio. After all this is a city I could live in.
So to summarize my time in Rio: it was incredible and mostly because of the people I met. Thanks a lot to all the Brazilians for what you've done for me during these days in Rio. It was just awesome.
Currently I'm bumming through the state of Minas Gerais. Visiting colonial towns was probably not as much fun as Carnaval but instead quite relaxing and I enjoyed it too. Now I'm in Belo Horizonte and about to head to Brasilia, the capital. It's going to be interesting to see a planed city with this size (2mio inhabitants) and I'll let you know about it in my next blog.

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