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Published: February 27th 2009
We arrived in Rio at 2am and went straight to bed.
The next morning we collected our tickets for Rio Carnaval and spent the afternoon walking along Ipanema beach. The beautiful bronzed bodies were squashed onto every available patch of sand and as we passed the gay section the bodies became even more bronzed, incredibly buff and impossibly crowed.
After sunset we went to a block party and joined in the drinking and dancing as a samba band played in a small park. The Carnaval had started.
To shake off the hangover we joined the beautiful people on the beach for a few hours and then watched a football match at Rio's Maracana stadium. I'm not really into football so who the teams were and the quality of the game passed me by, but the atmosphere was fantastic. Drums were played from start to finish and the crowd sang and waved huge flags in time to the beats.
More drinking ensued that evening as we walked along Ipanema and Copacabana beach front. Young kids were selling ice cold beer from coolers and samba bands played to the passing crowds. Everyone was in a party mood, getting ready
for the start of the parade tomorrow.
We slept right through the next morning in preparation for what was going to be a long night at Rio's Sambodromo, where the Carnaval parade takes place. When we got to the Sambadromo the noise and the crowds was almost overwhelming but the battle to our seating area was forgotten as soon as we saw our first samba school parade down the 1km parade route. Dancers, drummers, huge floats and fireworks all came together in a choreographed display which took 80 minuets to get from one end to the other.
The floats were so big that they could hold hundreds of dancers and would have animated animal heads or robotic arms. One was made to represent an old building which collapsed to reveal dancers inside, while another was designed in such a way that the dancers could run from the road behind the float, over the top and off the front.
Tracy, being her usual friendly self, made friends with a Brazilian family sitting next to us who had a brother conducting one of the samba schools in the parade, so we all danced and sang loudly when it was
his turn.
As the last samba school started their parade, the sun began to rise and by the time they had finished it was completely light. As we made our way home we walked next to many costumed revelers who were still dancing, despite looking incredibly tired.
Then we slept.
The Rio Carnaval parade takes place over 2 nights with 6 different samba schools performing each night. We had brought tickets for the first night and by booking a weeks accommodation with our hostel, we got free tickets for the second night. The seats weren't as good, but they were free, so we went along and enjoyed the sceptical for a second time but from a different view point.
With our time in Rio coming to an end we visited the Christ statue, from where we got a great view of the city. It was a little cloudy when we got to the top and as we enjoyed the view, a far off thunder storm rolled in. Suddenly there was a loud bang and a flash of light. Lighting had struck the statue. The air crackled for a second or two and the hair on the
back of my neck stood on end.
That night we went to Lapa to enjoy the end of Carnaval street parties and then got some well earned sleep.
Our last day in Rio was spent on a favela (slum) tour. It was incredibly interesting to see how the majority of people live in Rio, and the occasional shady character standing in an alley way with a pistol in his belt.
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