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Published: February 27th 2023
Misc. Photos Around Rio De Janeiro, Brazil
We Sailed Past Sugarloaf Mountain and Saw Christ the Redeemer from Afar (The Distant Peak to the Left) Carnival is an annual six-day Brazilian festival held, technically, only the Tuesday afternoon before Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. During Lent, that forty-day period before Easter, many Christians, especially Roman Catholics, abstain from the consumption of meat and poultry. Those perishables would not survive through the end of Lent, so Carnival in Brazil or Mardi Gras in Louisiana or Fat Tuesday to many, began as a means of consuming perishables to prevent such wasteful spoilage, hence the term "carnival" evolved from carnelevare, "to remove meat." The Brazilian version of the festival is a celebration of music, dance and song whose rhythm, participation, and costumes vary from one region of Brazil to another. These rhythms were mainly developed by Afro-Brazlians and Pardos, incorporating and adapting many cultural influences, from the percussion beats of Africa to the military fanfares of Europe. Carnival is the most popular holiday in Brazil and has become an event of huge proportions. The country unifies completely for almost a week, and festivities are intense, day and night, most notably in coastal cities. Rio de Janeiro's carnival drew 4.9 million people (400,000 foreigners) in 2011.
First, at this point in my life, I’m over traffic jams, large
Misc. Photos Around Rio De Janeiro, Brazil
Yup, Lots of People Packed into a Small Space crowds and doing all manner of things stupid so I have something to talk about at the country club after Mondays golf outing! Second, the two days of our visit just happened to be Saturday and Sunday. Okay, nobody has to work. I get it. The traffic will be less than a REGULAR weekday. But this is Carnival WEEKEND! Commuters and non-commuters alike will be full of “festival octane” and ready to p-a-r-t-y! Holland America offered two Shore Excursions that were of interest to me as Carnival activities, and both were cited as Duration: 8 hours, Activity Level: Strenuous and Departure Time 8:00 PM. What, we’re leaving at 8 PM (very close to my bedtime) for 8 hours to undertake a strenuous activity??? There had better be some significant remuneration at the end of the day! What, I have to pay $199.95 for the “Pre-Carnival Samba Parade One-Day Pass” so I can stand for 2-4 hours or pay $349.95 for the “Pre-Carnival Samba Parade from a Box Seat” so I can sit on a concrete bleacher for 2-4 hours??? Take note, both options were for the PRE-CARNIVAL Samba Parade, not even the real McCoy. I decided neither of those options
would transpire in this lifetime!!!
Two other Rio De Janeiro attractions are on the bucket list of many – Sugarloaf Mountain and Christ the Redeemer. Sugarloaf Mountain is a peak situated at the mouth of Guanabara Bay on a peninsula that juts out into the Atlantic Ocean. Rising 1300 feet above the harbor and overlooking the city, the peak is named for its resemblance to the traditional shape of a concentrated, refined loaf of sugar. Don’t ask me! Christ the Redeemer, only the fourth largest (surprised me) statue of Jesus Christ in the world, is a 98-foot art deco statue of Jesus Christ mounted on a 26-foot-high pedestal with outstretched arms that measure 92 feet. Made of reinforced concrete and soapstone, the landmark was constructed between 1922 and 1931 atop 2,300-foot Corcovado Mountain in the Tijuca National Park. Interestingly, Vincentian priest Pedro Maria Boss first suggested placing a Christian monument on Mount Corcovado in the mid-1850s to honor Princess Isabel, regent of Brazil and the daughter of Emperor Pedro II, but the project was not approved. In 1889, the country became a republic and, owing to the separation of church and state, the proposed statue was dismissed. Christ the
Misc. Photos Around Rio De Janeiro, Brazil
Paquetá Island Is an Auto-Free Zone, So Travel is Limited to Bicycles and Horse-Drawn Carriages Redeemer differs considerably from its original design, as the initial plan was a large Christ with a globe in one hand and a cross in the other. Although the project organizers originally accepted the design, it later was changed to the statue of today – one with the arms spread out wide. The statue has become a cultural icon of both Rio de Janeiro and Brazil as well as a symbol of Christianity around the world and was voted one of the New Seven Wonders of the World. The shore excursions to both of these attractions were reasonably-priced at $99.95, but neither was of sufficient interest to me to offset the aggravation of the probable traffic jams and crowds.
So, Uncle Larry went ashore, har-har, and walked to the cruise ship passenger terminal and through the terminal to take look out the other side in quest of something that might pique my interest. Seeing nothing of any appeal or of any socially redeeming value, I walked back to the ship. Later that night, I was quite pleased that I was not amidst the throngs of folks “dancin’ in the streets.” We celebrated Carnival in the World Stage with
Oi Misc. Photos Around Rio De Janeiro, Brazil
Volendam Is Not the Only (Show)boat in Town for Carnival Brasil! In the humble opinion is this non-expert who has never seen the Carnival performances on the streets of Rio, or any other Brazilian city for that matter; this group of dancers, acrobats, singers and musicians put together a show that could rival anything I might have seen on the streets of Rio, or any other Brazilian city – had I ever seen anything on the streets of Rio, or any other Brazilian city. I wish I could share the videos, but I’ll have to let a select group of stills speak for the caliber of the entertainment. A return visit to Rio OUTSIDE Carnival is not really on my bucket list. My reaction to the descriptions of the non-Carnival shore excursions made available by Holland America was, “If this the cream of the crop, I don’t want to see the mundane!”
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