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Published: February 25th 2008
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Watching the Carnival Parade
After an exciting evening of taking part in the Carnival, and going down the Sambadrome with the Samba School, GRES Portela tonight we get to watch the second day of the Carnival Parade from Section 9, the tourist stands. Sector 9 has predefined seating / standing places which are yours, and also the police have a greater presence to protect everyone.
Most of the day we stayed in bed, recovering from the night before, had a quick bite to eat and then headed to Lapa and the Sambadrome. This was the second time in Brazil that we felt like we were tourists, lots of security to get in to the Sambadrome. The first security gate takes a small credit card, but does not return it to you, so once you are in you can not go out and back in again.
Once past the first security post you enter a main street full of fast food restaurants, this was the first time in Brazil that we have not been able to get any fresh food, a bitter disappointment.
The second round of security was getting in to Sector 9, you have a large
card like around your neck which you have to scan to let you in and out. However having this card around your neck and trying to get it scanned required you to bend over a great deal, while juggling any food or gifts you may have bought. Oh yes it cost about £20 to purchase an official T shirt for the Carnival.
Once in the sector, the view of the Sambadrome was awesome, we could see to the right the start of the street to the left and ending archway, and we were about half way along the Sambadrome, and half way up the stands, perfect for viewing the parade.
We settled in for a long night, 20:30 came and a small parade opening the second night of the carnival came down the street, not too impressive, but it raised the excitement, as the night was just about to begin.
Finally at 21:00, the first works started, and the clocks down the Sambadrome reset to zero, each school get 80 minutes to parade down the Sambadrome. We could see in the far distance the first Samba School coming out and beginning to move towards us. After about
10 minutes the front of the parade passed our stand. Dancers lead the parade, followed by a king and queen (diva) of the school, dancing away with, what I could only say was a huge float, it filled the street and was about three stories high, and about 50 feet long if not more, this was then followed by a stream of vibrant colour costumes with about 200 dancers in each group, and about three groups. Then another carnival float, more dancers, a float, etc in all each school must have had 5 / 6 floats and between 4000 - 5000 dancers, amazing the shire size of the parade, and the amount of work that would have gone in the costumes and creation of the floats.
We just wiggled our hips for the first three samba schools, we'll we're British. Despite a Brazilian woman behind us dancing away all night, very fast. Final we said what the hell, and began to dance, and it was not until the 6th Samba School that we got the crazy feet, it was so hard work, but fun.
I'll let you to look at the photos to what the parades looked like,
but I will say that BEIJA-FLOR, the final school was clearly the best of the night and they turned out to win the competition for a 5 year in last 6 years.
We finally got back on to our coach at 05:30, we were knackered, but had what was a great night out and one to remember for the rest of our lives.
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