Closing with Carnaval

Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass…it’s learning to dance in the rain – Vivian Greene

If the reality of the highly anticipated spectacle of watching the Carnaval festivities starting around midnight and carrying on through the night wasn’t enough, the skies were also in full downpour when we left to go to the show.  We were so excited, we were still ready to dance.  Shia was eager for an “all nighter” and we were all very psyched in general.  We took a taxi and meandered through blocks of heavy traffic with folks selling ponchos at our window and found the way to our section of bleachers.  The Sambadrome is a permanent venue mostly used for these parades, and car races.  Lonely Planet travel guides have a whopping one sentence on Carnaval in Sao Paulo with most of the attention going to Rio.  And I’d say most of the tourists, as we didn’t notice a single foreigner there.  But this quieter version seemed perfect for us and it was much more affordable. After seeing it, I can’t imagine it was much less of a spectacle.  It certainly surpassed my expectations!  The Sambadrome can hold 30,000 spectators and I suspect even more people than that paraded through in the full glory of creative costumes.  There are 17 Samba Schools (more like clubs, than a school) that compete during a two night parade.  Each has a unique theme and a song and we expected one float per school.  WRONG!  The first school had 5 amazing floats!  They have 45 minutes to get all the spectacle they can onto the route, we were at the start and we could see that the logistics of this was very critical.  After each school they would close the gates and there would be an intermission where they would be staging the next group and filling their floats with dancers than can only get up to their high perches by using the bucket lifts.  Then the party starts again!  The crowd was so enthusiastic.  Everyone is on their feet, and many were dancing and singing along, and when the theme would change the crowd would cheer in response to the artistry presented. We managed to see 5 of the 7 schools perform that night/morning, Liam had a few cat naps during the performances and Shia wanted to stay until we could see the sun coming up. So we compromised and left about 5:30 am and could see the first evidence of the sun when we got back to our place around 6.

The next day we awoke around 11 to the light and breezy jazz music floating from the weekly fair held in the streets below our apartment.  We relaxed for a while enjoying those lovely sounds.  Later Shia and I went to check it out and she bought the most adorable guanaco scuplture made out of recycled materials.  On our way back we noticed that a bloco was gearing up.  Folks were handing out hats, vendors were selling drinks all over and lots of young adults with costumes and masquerade masks on.  After playing in the pool for a while, Chad and Heidi peeled off without the kids to check out the action.  The energy gradually grew until around 6 pm when the drums and the band kicked in.  Everyone started singing and dancing and followed the band and the Electric Donkey sculpture on a big rolling wagon.  We samba’d along with the rest of them, wearing our party hats and enjoying our cerveza.  The parties continued below our window long after we went to bed.

Today we fly from Sao Paulo to Africa.  Carnaval was one heck of a way to wrap up our wonderful package of memories here in S. America.

GO BRONCOS!

South American Highlights

Heidi

• Scuba Diving with SeaWolves
• Rio
• Carnaval

Shia

• Scuba Diving with SeaWolves
• Penguins at Ponto Tombo
• Perito Moreno Glacier

Liam

• Iguazu Falls – both Brazil and Argentina side
• View from Sugar Loaf Mtn in Rio
• The rainforest stay at Suracua Lodge

Chad

• Scuba Diving with SeaWolves
• Perito Moreno Glacier
• Girls on the beach in Rio
• New Years Eve in La Paloma