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Published: March 9th 2010
We have left Puerto Iguazu in Argentina, towards the city of
Florianopolis, in order to experience one of Brazil's charming Carnivals. The idea was to get there a few days before carnival starts, so we would still find an apartment, relax a bit, learn the area and plan ahead our carnival.
15 hours on a bus, suffering all ranges of atmospheres: from sweating like hell (the driver decided that people have opened the windows so he did not turn on the AC...) to freezing cold (eventually, when it was middle of the night, and everyone closed the windows, the driver decided it is the best time to put the AC on) - brought us to
Florianopolis. If we hoped to have any relief from the heat and humidity we left behind us in Iguazu Falls, we discovered very quickly, that we were wrong! The local terminal was more like a Turkish bath than anything else - it was hot, humid, no air-condition and bustling with people.
Exhausted from this bus ride (one of the worst we had in general) and with this atmosphere, you can understand why we were VERY slow in taking decisions regarding where to stay -
Working hard on the beach
Barra De Lagoa - Florianopolis, Brasilwe had a few guys jumping at us with offers of apartments as we stepped off the bus, but it took us more than 2 hours to take a decision... Eventually, we decided to bet on one of the guys that promised us a good apartment for a reasonable price.
Florianopolis, so we have discovered, is not a small city on a small island. It is huge - it spreads over the mainland and Santa Catarina island, an island that by itself is at the size of the populated coast of Israel all the way from Tel Aviv to Haifa.... So selecting in which village we would like to stay, is not a matter of nonsense. At last, not being original, we went to the same village most Israelis go to -
Barra Da Lagoa. We indeed got a nice apartment, on the second floor of a family house - so we had a nice breeze coming from the sea. It was 2 minutes walking distance from the beach, and 1 minute from the nearest supermarket or the bus station - right what we needed. We have agreed to take it for the next 8 nights, and fully paid
Nitzan and the "Ladies"
Carnival in Barra De Lagoa / Floripa, Brasil for it - it is the longest time we have spent in the same accommodation in this trip, but as Carnival was coming, no one would let an apartment for any less amount of days. We also learned that few friends we have recently made in Iguazu, are staying in apartments on the
same street as we do - so we would also have company for carnival time .
We made it! We are ready for Carnival!
The firs 2 days of staying in Floripa (the nickname used for this city) - were great - pure lazyness! Waking up late, having breakfast, or should I say lunch, don't know how I should call a meal eaten at 12:00 am yet it is the first meal of the day.. going to the beach etc. etc. Well, actually, we were not that lazy, as we did started our hard work of getting to know the Brazilian cuisine, and especially the things sold on the beach - corn cobs, Capirinha, fruit shakes made from fruits we have never heard or saw before, Acai, drinking coconut water and more. We would probably have to dedicate another entry
Florianopolis carnival
We are mingling with the dancers that are getting ready at a later stage to all our findings about the food here.
The feeling of Carnival coming was very obvious - every evening we could hear bands practicing, people were already stretching their bodies and shaking and dancing and our expectations only grew.
On February 12
Cranival opens - all excited, we made sure we all have a good long nap, so we would be able to celebrate all night long. We hopped on the bus that will take us to Floripa center (discovering that what took us 30 minutes with a car, is a “jump” that takes us 2 hours!). When we arrive at Floripa center around 23:00, all we found was a stage with some unknown singers on it, a crowd boringly looking at it (if you really looked hard, you could see some people in the crowd shaking their asses a little bit, as if they were dancing), some youngsters were spraying all kind of sprays on passing people and obviously there were some food and drink stalls around. As one of our friends said that night - it looks like the independence day celebrations we have in Israel - Applause for being able to
Greek Culture - a carnival float
Winners parade, Flrioanopolis, Brasil stretch it over a week ... The only Brazilian touch were some guys who dressed up as girls. In the next few days we would learn that boys dressed up as girls is a major component of carnival, at least in Floripa. The kids were not so impressed, they were even very bored (they could not even enjoy the Capirinia we drunk), and so after only 1 hour, we have decided to turn around and go back (have I already mentioned it is almost 2 hours bus drive?...). So Carnival first day was marked as a disappointment.
But, don't worry , each of the following days, became better than the previous one, and we had VERY good time and greatly enjoyed carnival, at the end of the day.
Carnival day 2, was the day of the samba schools competition. As I mistakenly thought that the contest will spread on 2 days, we have decided not to go to see the competition on this day, and learn from the many who will go tonight, how to get tickets, what is the best time to go etc. We have decided to stay in our village, and experience the local celebration
of carnival. It was great! Around 10 pm, we started walking towards the center, when we encountered the float of the town. It was simply decorated, 4 dancers were dancing on it, wearing colourful custumes (well, there was more of their body exposed than covered, but still I have to say they were dressed) and the music was on and loud - they were singing the local carnival song of the town . The float just started moving, and we, as all the rest of the crowd, started walking and dancing behind it. As we moved along the streets the amount of people dancing along the float, to its sides and behind it grew bigger and bigger. In the next 3 hours, we passed about 500 meters.... People were realy happy, people , were dressed with costumes. Many young men were dressed up as ladies. The kids were so happy. They danced, they sang, they laughed, they were part of the celebration. Though the float was not fancy at all, there was nothing of the feathers and glamor we see in pictures from the carnival in Rio - we had GREAT
TIME. It was a genuine family oriented carnival.
The third carnival night, we have decided to go for the more formal competition in town, in the official 'Pasarela' - where the groups pass in front of the audience in a special "Sambadrome". This time, traffic was even harder, and it took us 3 hours to get to town... By the time we arrived (at 23:00) we though everything has already been finished, and seeing the Pasarela from distance we almost confirmed our worries, since it seemed empty. But, we had a good surprise. We got to the pasarela and understood that today, there is no competition of samba schools, today is the day of the 'Blocos' - similar to the samba schools, different groups pass, they each have a theme, some floats, many sub groups of people marching and dancing and the flag holders and some samba dancers in between. The difference from the samba schools competition is that the costumes of the groups are way simpler and the dances are less proffesional. As it is less fancy, and it was raining earlier in the evening, there was very little audience, but this only enabled us to stand in
Carnival or not?
Tal is having LOTS of fun (you should have seen these girls from behind...) the first line of the passing groups. At 2 am, it was terminated and we returned to our littlele village - back to sleep.
The forth day, did not bring any special events, so I will jump directly to the last day of carnival.
The last day, was the day we were all waiting for - the winners parade! It was an amazing experience. We arrived to the passarela, just in time before the winning schools started to march, so we still had enough time to mingle with the people getting ready to their performance - take pictures with them, see them getting dressed etc. The kids were so excited, and were jumping from one to another - asking for pictures, asking to try on some of the outfits etc. Then, we entered and took a seat. Carnival has already started on the benches - many of the people watching were dressed up, or at least had masks, they were all drinking and eating and different vendors were running around trying to sell their goods - ice creams, pastries, puffed sugar, drinks and above all - lots of local beer.
The three winning schools marched that night,
and it was amazing to see - the customs, the platforms, the colors, the imagination, the dances, the music, the excitement of the dancers and of the audience - all are hard to explain in words (and even hard to capture in photos). When the third school marching was about to complete the walk, we went out of the official seating area, down to where the schools exit when they finish - it was overwhelming! We became part of the carnival. The dancers & the band could not stop singing playing and dancing, even when they exited the official path, and so we found ourselves inside their lines, surrounded by their customes, dancing with them. Many of them started taking off parts of their customs, and so Nitzan found herself receiving full customs from one of the dancers - she was so excited from this, that we had to carry this huge outfit and construction all the way back to our room (I remind you it is more than an hour drive in the public bus) - only when we left Floripa, she agreed we cannot carry it any further, but she still tear off great parts of it, to
send back home.
Though the parade ended around 3am in the morning, and the kids were really tired - they were so thrilled and happy, that they had no problem at all staying awake. When we walked from the stadium to the bus station (a 20 minutes walk) - rain started to pour down - just a perfect timing. Skies, just like us, were crying over the end of carnival. Unlike the people of Floripa, we knew, we still have a chance to experience a bit of carnival in Rio, as we were about to get on a bus to Rio the next day, arriving in Rio in time to “catch” the winner's parade of the most famous samba competition in the whole world.
We have taken over 500 hundred pictures and short movies in these days of carnival in Floripa. After working hard sorting them, deleting and eliminating less interesting or bad pictures, we now have “only” half (over 250 photos). As I could only upload a fraction of these to this blog entry, if you really want to see more of the carnival - click on this link:
Photos of Floripa Carnival Also, to view some pictures we took from our hard life in Barra De Lagoa (Floripa), click here:
Barra De Lagoa photos Until we write again I wish you all
Happy carnivals -
Lilach
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Itzhak Grinberg
non-member comment
Biutiful
I am planning to do a similar trip, but shorter in time and milage. So I will be happy to show you my plan, and to ask you some advises, if possible. Especially about proper seasons for sertane types of trips. Have fun. itzhak