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Published: March 24th 2009
Tim Version:
* Carnaval - everything it is cranked up to be! Mad parties all the time, dancing everywhere, huge Blockos, music all the time, muggings and pickpocketing everywhere, and a beer vendor never more than 10 metres from you.
* I think I killed my liver...
* Ventured to the local Salvador beaches, including an island beach.
The sleepless party like f´ing crazy version:
Hard to know where to start for this entry.. OK, maybe the hostel, Nega Maluca, wicked hostel =) Very comfoortable, good owner, good workers, good crowd. I got a dorm bed in a dark quiet corner perfect for sleeping during the day. We also had a bar inside, perfect for starting things before hitting the streets. Salvador itself is a decaying city, both beautiful and sad, riding along the seafront and back quite a distance. It is a fairly busy port too. During Carnaval it looked much more glamoured up than it really was, but after the party finished the true impact of the poverty can be felt here. I had a guy ask very rudely for food, who I told no, so his next sentence was "I have a knife
and I'll hurt you". I didn't think he had one so probably unwisely told him hell no not with that phrase and thankfully I was right... but that kinda stuff isn't too uncommon and makes the city much less fun to visit unfortunately. The most gutsy and forward beggers I've seen, and a fair amount of street kids.
OK next idea..maybe if I give a general idea of Carnaval here.
The areas: Pelourinho, Barra, and Campo Grande. These are the 3 circuits that Carnaval does.
Some lingo.
A Blocko = usually a float with music and performers surrounded by people wearing the shirrt of that block dancing along with it, with everybody roped in.
A Camarote = Area along the side of the circuit, often a few stories tall, where you pay to be inside to watch the blockos and everything from a higher safer point of view, often with all the food and drink you can manage to get in you.
Pelourinho: Where our hostel was. The circuit, family fun, much safer, mainly consisting of big groups of musical groups along with costumes and other things like giant paper mache people crusing through the street. Easy to
join in with, never that massive, not what you'll see on the news. Good for those nights when you are just too tired and wrecked to handle the other circuits.
Campo Grande: Near Pelourinho, this is the "locals" circuit. A much fiestier crowd, not such a good place often if you are not African as there is a lot of African pride going on here. If you are going to get beaten up, this is where it will happen. It is however a massive circuit and we still went down there and loved it. The atmosphere is heavy, the music incredible, the dancing amazing. Some nights it was just bad to be down there... other nights it was OK. It depended on the crowd.
Barra: What I would call the main circuit. Massive, blockos taking up to 5 hours to run its length, this is where we spent most of our time. A complete mix of locals and foreigners, its an easier place to get around. Same size Blockos and so forth as Campo Grande. Has the advantage of having areas along the beach, essential to give you a place to run to when fights break out of
the crowd heaves angrily in your direction.
The Police: The scariest thing, yet you will love them so much when trouble is around. Everyone, and I mean everyone, makes way for these guys. There is about 4 or 5 different groups, up to those dressed in green that have wooden batons about 1 metre long (seriously, they're ridiculus). They marchin groups of 4 or more, and wherever they want. If you are in the road, you will be moved. Whole blockos stop or squeeze in to let them through. If trouble breaks out there is about 5 seconds before they are there, and whoever started the shit is freakin dead. They're also in stands all along the side of the road. Incredible to see in action. I saw some lines of them in Barra running 60 police long and they march like machines, moving anything in their path without breaking stride.
OK now one more little explanation... shirts. My green shirt from the photo, just given to us by the hostel. It made finding everyone the first night when we headed out much easier. The others however are your tickets to Blockos and Camarotes. Lose it and its
your ticket gone. Is it costly? Hell yeh. Look up some prices online, its crazy...
I went to all circuits but mostly Barra. Most nights started with drinking before the sun went down, a micture of Beer (kinda shit and makes you sleepy) and Caipirinhas (a local drink made with Cachaça, $4 for 1 litre, 40% alcohol, made from sugarcane I think...). This is a drink and a word you will use almost more than any other during Carnaval, and in Brazil in general. From there we would either take a Taxi or bus to Barra, or walk to the other two circuits. Then dancing and drinking for 6 to 10 hours. Sleep, you don't get a lot and it's all during the day. I danced enough that I quite literally blew out the sides of my shoes. The streets become one big river of Urine too. The smell, you get used to it. Anyway you're dancing and drinking too much to care. The beaches, wow... I think the whole sea was turned to urine. I still drunkenly went swimming one night though with some others, something I don't regret but I'm sure wasn't particularly healthy! Another night in
Pelourinho we met some local girls up in one of the open areas that the groups go past, and they showed us all around for the rest of the night to a few incredible clubs and areas that were wicked fun and we would have no chance of finding on our own!
Crazy shit that happened - I'd guess at maybe 30% of the hostel getting mugged and pickpocketed. By the end maybe 80% had been sick with stomach upsets, vomiting, diahorrea, all that kinda stuff. People beaten up, a few. The first night coming back as one big hostel group the guy next to me had a ring on his finger and had his hand up high on a rail. We were inside the caged area before youpay since we couldn't fit in the bus. Someone tried to steal his ring so he pulled his hand back, not knowing what was going on... what followed, he got hit in the face (this is hand reaching from the bus into the caged area), then kept getting hit, myself and another started getting hit in the back of the head so we couldn't turn around, I got my necklace ripped
off my next (the type with beads, it just explodes when it breaks), and yeh once we got the bus to stop there were police there and they stopped the bus, made lots of people get off, and searched to no avail for the offender. Heh interesting end to our first night. Other than that, people pickpocketed by 4 or more people at once, people shoved to the wall by 2 or more people and mugged in front of the crowd, a few robbed at knife point... all to be expected. It does not however detract from the fun =)
It is the most crazy party filled week of my life, and everything you see on TV or YouTube about it, I was in the middle of it =) I loved the streets and didn't got in any Blockos or Camarotes, but maybe next time for something different... we'll see.
The only damage I copped at the end was an inability to construct sentences in any language, and 2 nights where I felt like I was getting sick like everyone else. Those nights however were fixed by drinking Caipirinhas when Carnaval was on, and sleeping when it had
Group shot one
A better quality photo but it cut a few of us out!finished.
Post Carnaval in Salvador we checked out some beaches including one on an island that is across from Salvador City-.They're OK but full of vendors and those colourful umbrellas I hate and the surf was pretty dodgy. On the island it was totally flat but thats how most of the crowd wanted it so I lost out there heh. On the Feri ride over to the island you get a wicked view of Salvador though, and when we got near the island there were some kids swimming on a buoy a reasonable distance out, and they jumped off, swam up to the boat, and took a free ride in holding onto the tyres on the side! The other beach we used to teach one of the British girls how to surf until her arms had had enough! I got just little too sunburnt that day but thats what you get going tired and hung over and falling asleep heh.
I have a million stories from Carnaval but writing them on here, nah, too hard... I'm sure they'll come out over time with a few drinks anyway =)
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