Carnival ACTION

CARNIVAL

For starters, where did the week(s) go??! Two... no, three weekends ago - the first weekend of February - were the Carnaval's Almost Here celebrations. The bloco rehearsals all over Rio, the Sambodromo free rehearsals Sunday nights, and the Carnival themed parties to get everyone pumped for the weeks to come. Then there were the Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday-Is-It-HERE-YET??! anxieties. People worked hard before vacation. And now it's... Friday... Saturday... Sunday... Monday... FAT Tuesday... ASH Wednesday... GONE!!! There's no mistaking it; Carnival took over, like a tornado, swirled the bejeezus out of Rio, and left it upside down and limp. Rio was, at least for a day, the damp towel annually rung out by Jesus. But only until Rio got its second wind.

Right before the weekend is no time for the party to end. Ash Wednesday functioned more like a day to sober up than a religious tradition, and the "Carnival hangover" blocos continued well into the weekend. The progression of Carnival from in-that-place-at-that-time in the beginning of February, to everywhere-all-the-time during actual carnival, reversed again. It's not over. It's blasphemous. For a week and a half, there was no time to sober up, or rinse off, or nap between festivities. Carnival was in your hair; on that block; at that beach; under your nails; in your bikini, and stuck to that hat and boa and necklace of leis that came out of nowhere.

It's hard - even irresponsible - to talk about Carnival like it's one thing. At one point, I was walking down the beach with Emily Barnette (who later that night bit my lip off when I tried to share my gum with her) when two tall blond human beings spoke to us. Fucking GRINGOS. We first pretended that we didn't speak english, but eventually gave in:

-Excuse us girls, but do you know... vare is ze Carnival?

-... Em toda parte! Everywhere! You're in it!

-But, do you know ze street? Vare do ve go? How much? Do ve take ze taxi? Ve have money...

-This street, that street, every street. Carnival is everywhere. Open your EYES.

-Yees, yees. But vat is ze address? How do ve find the Carnival? Do you know of an address or sometheeng like dees?

-YOU'RE IN RIO. IT'S EVERYWHERE. Open your EARS.

There were, at that moment, at least 3 live music parties within hearing/seeing distance along Copacabana beach. Everyone within the 30 square mile radius was celebrating Carnival at that moment. Except for these confused Gringos.

-Vare do ve find ze one on ze televisions?

-Ohhhhhh... the one for which you need expensive tickets and a ride downtown... it's in Centro, and at this hour, you'd best take a van or a bus, but you should have tickets already. You should probably just grab a caiparinha and check out that live music over there...

They insist on taking a taxi the long, traffic-slowed distance to the place where their change would be more than enough to secure two late R$300 and up tickets at the Sambodromo.

The point is this: Carnival is not about "vat ve see on ze television." Well, maybe if you're a loaded shithead from Austria, sure. But the logical fun-havers, including Brazilians (those actually remain in Rio for the hectic invasion), better options exists. This is indisputably the best thing about Carnival. That is, the variety of enjoyers/modes of enjoyment. It's an awkward concept for which to find words, but let me explain: The entire city of Rio de Janeiro took a week and a half long holiday for this samba-sin-extravaganza. Every neighborhood organized celebratory music-dance-party events.

People with money got to go to the Sambodromo, see the Samba parades, go to the clubs and concerts, go to Blocos, see Samba street parades, dance in the streets, party on the beach.

People without money got to to go to the Sambodromo, see the Samba parades, go to the clubs and concerts, go to Blocos, see Samba street parades, dance in the streets, party on the beach.

The only real difference I detected is that Tourists. Can't. Hang. Maybe it's got something to do with the fact that tourists have to concentrate their Carnival events into the expensive, main week of Carnival. By day two or three, the lack of moderation induced by a lack of time leaves tourists miserable, with sunburns, dehydration, hangovers, and sleep depravation that can only be elevated by more alcohol. They also have to balance the difficulties of becoming accustomed to Rio with ceaseless partying. Tourists mostly ended up exhausted, sunburned, sick, hungover, sunburned, dehydrated, exhausted, hungover, sunburned...

The beauty of a longterm Carnival experience is spreading all of this out. Believe me; it's how everybody I know survived. Both life-long Cariocas and relatively long-term visitors (including students like myself) who were here for the month and a half of 2010 before the tourists invaded, got to experience the a cheaper, less impossibly crowded, cleaner Carnival, including the contrasting one.

There were certainly days - namely Saturday - when I swore I hated Carnival. "Eu não posso esperar até o fim do Carnival!" I said. "Eu detesto todas as turistas. Eu detesto a praia cheia com turistas. Eu detesto as Cariocas quando acham que todos nós gringos não falamos Portuguese! Eu não posso esperar até o Rio volta a normal." This was all said after going to this magnificent Bloco in Santa Teresa, an artsy, old, somewhat ritzy but admirably eccentric barro where I spent an hour sweating my balls off, moving like a snail through crowds of obnoxious ,beer-o0zing, smelly fucking men, not finding my friends, losing the friends I was with in the first place, being thirsty, having to pee, being whacked with all the fancy sparkly, colorful costumes, being smeared with sweaty body paint/glitter, wishing my costume were that cool, wishing I were that drunk...

(At least the Bloco in Santa Teresa was reallllyyy awesome for properly drunk people. PROOF:)

By the time we made it to the center of the Bloco's festive nucleus, I said "EU PRECISO O MAR. AGORA!" and Igor and I made our way back through the crowd, through the cobble stoned streets, down the winding roads full of stumbling men dressed as women, toward the bus, off the bus when we realized that Carnival reroutes busses to go really inefficient ways allowing for more street parties, connected to a costumed-people-filled metro, stumbled through another beach-side Bloco, maneuvered the tourist-saturated Ipanema beach, and wormed our way into the waves.

This was all great until we got out, and the only people to talk to were a couple from England, a group of creepy 40 year old bachelors from Italy, and a shit ton of fucking American grandpas on the prowl for ravishing Brazilian wives. And the beach beers/snacks/caiparinhas were twice expensive as normal. The sand 10 times as full of garbage as normal.

But then there's the side that happens when you wake up from a beach nap, and you realize that all your friends are dressed up crazy at some random block party and they want you to come. They hand you drinks, and there's live music surrounding, and there are drummers passionately, and ceaselessly producing the Samba rhythms they know and love so hard. Everybody's dancing, and everybody's creeping, and anything goes. So what I'm really trying to say is... Carnival is alive. It needs not your approval. It's going to keep going, and the universe will always somehow support this.

This is a night bloco that everyone happened upon at the square in Ipanama, General Osorio. The festivities went on as all of us ended up partying throughout the neighborhood, ending on beach, well into the night.

(Vender of last-minute costumes)

The next day, I tried to have a tranquil nap on the beach when I heard the samba blaring from down the beach in Leblon. It was the "Que Merda é Essa?" Bloco. I gravitated toward it and it was glorious! I spent the whole thing taking pictures of the awesome parade. The best were the drummers. Also the random hilarious people participating. Here are some photos from that:

Derector controlling everything! This guy is #1 rad human of Carnival, in my world.

This photo is particularly glorious because it shows the batarista director directing his drummer people where they stopped on the beach to end. The statue of christ towers in the background!

Finally: my favorite random people:

(boob man)