When one thinks of Rio one always thinks about the famous carnival. So when we started planning our trip we knew this was one thing we definitely wanted to experience. We weren’t sure what to expect and how exactly everything works, but we knew we wanted to do it! On Friday afternoon we arrived at our second couchsurfer, Victor, and settled in. We then got to talking about what our game plan was for the carnival weekend. Carnival is basically a series of free street parties called “blocos”. These blocos consist of a truck or bus with performers on them that drive slowly around certain areas. Masses of people follow these blocos around dancing, drinking and celebrating in their weird and wacky outfits. Another part of carnival is the parade of samba schools dancing on floats. This you have to buy a ticket for and you sit on a grand stand and spectate. The tickets for this are very expensive so we decided to just participate in some of the blocos.
On Saturday morning we woke up early and got dressed. A friend of Victor, Julia, who was coming with us for the day, had bought extra outfits so she gave me a feather headband to look the part! Our first bloco was on Copacabana main road. We arrived and nothing much was happening but then we heard the faint sounds of drums in the background. The bloco was on its way. Before we knew it we were surrounded by all the festivities and were dancing along to the local Brazilian drumming. There are no organized bars so you just buy beer or frozen caipirinhas sachets from locals selling them on the side of the road. Blocos only last a couple of hours so before we knew it we were back on the bus off to the next bloco near Botofoga where we found Nelson Mandela Square! This bloco felt a lot more crowded as the streets were a lot smaller. At times it can get a bit claustrophobic. We stayed for another hour or so and then had dinner before the two hour metro and train ride home.
On Sunday we thought we would take it a bit more chilled and chill on Ipanema beach for the day. There would be a bloco passing the beach so we thought we could spectate and tan at the same time. We loaded the coolerbag with beers and packed our day pack. What we didn’t realize was that most people had the same idea. The trains, metros and busses to Ipanema were absolutely jam-packed with people in all kinds of crazy outfits. After about 2 hours of travelling we managed to find a spot on the beach and spent the afternoon observing the craziness from our cozy beach chair, beers in hand. We sampled all the delicious snacks that the vendors were selling on the beach including a stick with grilled prawns. Yum! Later that afternoon we made the arduous 2-hour journey back home and packed our stuff for our departure at 4am the following morning.
All in all we had a great time with our new friends Alex and Victor at Carnival and it was certainly a once-in-a-lifetime experience to get to see Carnival first-hand. We are now looking forward to dialing it down a couple of notches and chilling out on Caye Caulker island in Belize!
Chris and Ro go... 