I don't think Rio will ever be the same... No, we behaved rather well given the possibilities. We managed to get a decent place to stay, in the middle of Rio de Jaineiro, in the district of Catête (pronounced: Ketetchie) for a decent price. Other than the foul smell of the water, the shower breaking, the key breaking in the lock while trying to enter at 4AM, the AC stopping the hotel was a good value, in fact I'd stay there again only for its central location that gave us easy access to the metro. Now, the city of Rio is a marvel, perhaps that's why it's nickname is "ciudade maravilhosa" (marvelous city). Geographically Rio is a spectacle, with it's many solid granite monoliths along its jagged coastline and endless beaches (Including Copacabana) decorated with plenty of colorful and beautiful people. Rio is a big city, difficult to see all of it, especially during carnaval, especially when one consumes lots of cerveza. But a friend of a friend of a friend offered to help us find and experience the true Carioca (Person from Rio) Carnaval. And that we did! From the beginning we found ourselves immersed in an atmosphere of festivity, almost everything was closed and everyone who didn't flee the city was on the streets, drinking, dancing and singing. This mutual friend, who is now our friend, and her husband, showed us the "bloco" party, which difficult to explain, but easy to describe: thousands of people meet up in a designated place at a designated time, samba music is played on large trucks and people dance and parade for several hours following/leading the music truck through the streets. Some of the blocos have been the same for almost 90 years, others just a couple, but they usually have a theme, like friendship, or fantasy, or whatever, but they're all pretty much the same. It's really just a bunch of people all making fools of themselves together (when in Rome...)
Anyway, the more commercial aspect of Carnaval is in the giant stadium called the Sambódromo (giant samba stadium) where samba "schools" go to compete, professionally. A samba "school" is a group of several thousand people organized to create several dozen themes with floats and costumes and march through the Sambodromo before judges and spectators. It's really nothing more than a giant parade for five days, we were there at two in the morning one night and they were still going strong. The costumes are spectacular and the music is loud. Some women wear little or no costume as they dance samba, whatever it takes to gain points to win. Aside from the dancers, the most impressive thing is the structure of the Sambodromo, which is a stadium some 1/3 of a mile long with tall tall stands on both sides, resembling a wide city street, with many many lights shining onto the competitors and into the sky. Honestly, sitting there is quite boring, the school has one hour to get everyone and all the floats through and then there's a big break between schools. We were more into the street party, which cost next to nothing.
Then there are the beaches, which were very full last week. Since it is summer here, Rio gets warm, tropical warm with humidity and 33 degrees Celsius (85-90 Fahrenheit, I think). Everyone goes to the beach and there is much to see! I felt overdressed with my swimming trunks on! (Not to be misleading, nudity was rare, suits were just cut to be as small as possible). Anyway, we got a lot of exercise walking on the beaches, trying to find a place to sit or a place to swim. Had it been any other time I would have been quite frustrated by the number of people, but that is what carnaval is about: lots of people.
Now we're back in São Paulo, to rest for a day. It seems we've been invited to the beach again, by a distant relative of Helen's (did I tell you how wonderful they've been to us? introducing us to so many people, I'll never have time to see everyone again!).
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