One of the world’s biggest and best-known celebrations wrapped up this week in Rio with record temperatures (soaring to 106 Fahrenheit on Tuesday!) as the mayhem of Carnival slowly came to an end. Over 700,000 visitors came to the city (including a few celebrities like Madonna, Beyonce and Paris Hilton) to join in the five nights of street parties, open-air concerts, costume balls and brilliant parades taking place in the custom-built Sambadrome.
Local officials estimate some 2.5 million feted Carnival in Rio, and this year the city made efforts to bring more orderliness to the often chaotic celebration, adopting the motto “choque de ordem” (the shock of order). Only licensed vendors were allowed to sell beer and other drinks at street parties, and the city installed some 4000 portable toilets around Rio in an effort — largely successful — to combat the rivers of urine that sometimes accompany the 20,000-strong block parties (the city also took a tough stance on revelers who chose to relieve themselves outside of these chemical bathrooms, arresting over 300 this year). It was Rio’s first Carnival since winning the bid to host the 2016 Olympics, and the city seemed determined to prove that it could properly manage such massive gatherings.
On Friday, as I spoke with longtime residents of Rio, Cariocas seemed torn over the best way to celebrate Carnival. Some adored the celebrations, the pageantry of the samba school parades, the gathering of friends old and new at democratic street parties and the donning of costumes for a bit of fun around town. Others detested the crowds and packed beaches, the noise and drunkenness on the streets, and preferred to flee town for more peaceful getaways, like the idyllic coastline near Angra dos Reis to Rio’s west or to the beaches of Buzios to the east.
One family I visited was evenly divided over Carnival. The father and his 12-year-old son were using the holiday to travel north to the cooler mountainous retreat around Teresopolis. As the two packed for an early morning departure, the mom and her teenage daughter, plus a few other family friends, were giddily making costumes for the Banda de Ipanema block party the next day, one of many fests they planned to attend over the next four days. The whole group of them would soon transform themselves into members of French King Louis the Sixteenth’s court, complete with ‘corsets’ (air-brushed form-fitting t-shirts) and ‘powdered wigs’ (sanitary pads pasted onto a foam base that was made of strips of insulation staple-gunned together).
For many Cariocas, the Sambadrome, where the magnificent all-night parades take place, is the focal point of Carnival. Here, Rio’s best escolas de samba (not ‘schools’ per se, but competitive groups of 3000 to 5000, with enormous drum sections, fantastical costumes and huge mechanized floats) would parade before a crowd of 70,000, with millions more watching on TV. Having attended the parade in years past, I decided to take part this year, joining the ranks of Caprichosos de Pilares, a former top school that fell into the second division in 2006 following a lackluster performance. (Anyone who wants can join a samba school and take part in the parade. You simply have to learn the school’s theme song for the year and buy a costume, which runs anywhere from US$150 to US$500.)
This year, Caprichosos pulled out all the stops and revived one of their favorite samba-enredos, the 1985 “E por falar em Saudade,” which took a nostalgic look at the past when days were better in Brazil. The song also challenged the military dictatorship of the time, calling for direct elections and an end to inflation. Like most schools, the costumes were a mix of over-the-top designs–including lunging foam dragons, brightly plumed tropical birds and giant bowls of bean soup. Ten of us gathered at a friend’s place before the parade and we had in our group several cowboys, a gypsy, two pirates, a nurse, a jester, a pair of 1920s flapper girls and even a floral-print-wearing tourist. We joined umbrella-toting clowns, soccer players wearing the colors from Rio’s four soccer clubs, gas station attendants (with fabric gas nozzles attached to their hips) and pink-suited samba stars in our shimmy down “the avenue” (as the 700-meter-long stretch through the Sambadrome is sometimes called).
We danced and did our best with the song lyrics as we paraded through the stadium behind a float packed with bikini-clad samba dancers (the “bunda,” or “bottom,” is something of an icon in Rio’s Carnival, and figured in many floats and even some theme songs, our school notwithstanding). It was an adrenaline rush dancing through an arena of cheering crowds — some of whom waved Caprichosos flags and knew the words to our samba-enredo better than us (indeed, among true escola de samba aficionados, Caprichosos’ 1985 samba-enredo was famous).
Depending on where you sit (and tickets cost anywhere from US$20 to over US$500), watching the parade can be an exhilarating experience, particularly if you get a chance to see some of the top schools perform. This year’s winner (announced on Wednesday) was Unidos da Tijuca, which pulled its first grand prize ever in the school’s 74-year history. The school’s theme was “It’s a Secret,” which conjured images from the great mysteries, myths and legends of history, including Greek temples, Egyptian pyramids and a lush “Hanging Gardens of Babylon” packed with 5000 plants. Just for fun, there was also a heel-kicking Michael Jackson look-alike and a mini ski slope which “Batman” skied down to roaring crowds.
Those that missed seeing Unidos da Tijuca during Carnival still have one last chance to see them again — along with the five runners-up — this Saturday in the parade of champions. Meanwhile, most street parties have come to an end, though there is one last big Carnival gathering this Sunday. In the center of town, Monobloco will bring tens of thousands of revelers back out on the streets for one last adieu to the party that won’t return until 2011.
Read Part 2 of this series, “Rio’s Big Fest: Carnival Hits the Streets.”
Read Part 1 of this series, “Rio’s Big Fest: Behind the Scenes of Brazil’s Famous Fest.”