Carnaval no Rio de Janeiro

So I made it back in one piece from the world's biggest five day party: Carnaval in Rio de Janeiro. My first word to describe the experience: overwhelming, my second word: mind-blowing, my third word: exhausting. Where do I start? There is so much.

So what is Carnaval? It is a five day festival before the beginning of lent that starts on Friday and ends mid-day on Ash Wednesday. The word Carnaval comes from the Roman Catholic word carnelevare which literally means to remove meat. Traditionally Catholics and some Christians abstained from eating meat during lent as a form of fasting. Carnaval, therefore, marks the beginning of this period. Okay so there is your classic Wikipedia info to give you a little background.

So what is Carnaval in Rio? It is five days of drunk free-for-all with all the Cerveja (beer), cigarettes and piss in the streets you want. Okay its more than that but at first glance in the eyes of a 21 year old girl who has barely been in Brazil a month, this was my first impression. The only religious aspect of it is the occasional glance up at the famous Cristo Redentor (Christ the Redeemer) statue that stands above the whole city and is visible from the streets down below. I couldn't help but almost feel guilty as I participated in the Carnaval mayhem with this statute hovering over us. I am not religious but I can't imagine what could be going through Christ's head as he observed: "Really guys this is how you prepare for the time set aside to reflect on me?" Because after all that is part of what lent is about, to contemplate the sacrifice and suffering of Jesus Christ. But I digress, back to the inebriated chaos!        

Carnaval in Rio and in all of Brazil is famous for what are called Blocos, block parties. But don't get too ahead of yourself. This is no neighborhood barbecue. Furthermore, there is no one way to describe a bloco. They vary depending on the region in Brazil. In Rio, and the Southeast of Brazil in general, the blocos are filled with pure Samba music. Different Samba schools have their bands play on the top of big moving trucks and the school members dance throughout the city. People gather to follow the truck to dance and move along with the music. You have blocos of all sizes that go on all day. Some start at six in the morning others at four in the afternoon, so people just bounce (or should I say wobble/crawl) around from one bloco to the next. And everyone has some sort of costume on. Nothing too dramatic because granted its 95 degrees out in the hot sun, but yes some sort of costume. My friends and I were Flintstone characters, gypsies, princesses, etc. Every ten feet or so you have a little cart with a big blue umbrella sticking up over the crowd where you can find a wonderful selection of Antartica Beer (Brazilian equivalent to a Bud Light), Water and Red Bull. I would say the beer consumption for the average bystander was a beer every 10-15 minutes. An incredible rate really. That is about 5-6 beers an hour starting as early as six in the morning and going until 10 at night for five days in a row. Is your liver quivering? From time to time a cart would pass by with Caipirinha popsicles. These were really a treat, especially for people like me who do not enjoy drinking beer.

Anyways the cart vendors are what fascinated me the most. Most of them most likely live up in the favelas (city slums) and came down to the flat, developed part of the city to make their years earnings selling beer and water to Carnaval goers. The whole dynamic shows how separated the society is in Rio and all of Brazil and really most developing countries. There was one cart vendor that caught my attention as I stood amongst the free-for-all : A young mother with her two daughters about 11 and 13 years old. I first saw the youngest daughter walking through the crowd carrying the big, empy Styrofoam cooler over her shoulders towards her mom. Someone accidentally bumped her and the corner of the cooler poked her in the eye. Between the sweat drops and the bump the poor thing could not open her eye. Finally making her way through the mass of people with one eye closed she set the heavy cooler down and started rubbing her eye. Her older sister, anxious to refill the empty cooler, started pestering her to start helping, but the little girl could not stop rubbing her eye. The two of them started arguing and it reminded me of how I would bicker with my little sisters over some toy when we were younger. However, these girls were not fighting over some materialistic desire but rather over bucking up to the pain in order to make ends meet for the rest of the year. The argument ended with the youngest girl sitting on the curb next to her mom's cart with her head in her hands. I stood and watched as she sat there invisible to the mass of people standing around her. I wanted to sit down next to her and give her a hug or get her an ice pack. I looked over at her mom as she passed out one beer after the next. From her cart looking up a the hill there was a favela, looming over the boulevard in all its despair.

I don't know why this image stuck with me so much. It was mostly confusing being there during Carnaval, a time that represents Brazil's famous happy-go-lucky mentality, but still seeing so much misery within the cracks of the city. Last year I wrote a research paper on the street children of Latin America for my Latin American Politics class. I wrote a lot about Brazil because, although better now, it is infamous for its issue regarding homeless children. Mostly because of  the Candelária Church massacre in 1993 when Brazilian police men killed 8 street kids in Rio de Janeiro. So being there and seeing all this socio-economic turmoil that I read about in books and worked so hard to put into words for my final paper, was, well, very difficult to internalize. You go to college and learn so much about the world and all the issues and hardships that people face to then get graded on your knowledge about it. Then you have this grade and its like okay sweet. But you really don't know anything until you see it right there in front of you. And there it was over and over again from the little girl sitting on the curb rubbing her eye, to the group of street kids waiting on the corner to rob a lost tourist, to the two men smoking crack on Copacabana beach after a long day in the hot sun.

But don't be fooled. There is a reason why the New York Times just put Rio as the number one tourist destination for the upcoming years. It is a spectacular city filled with so much character, spunk, and not to mention loads of history. I loved walking along Ipanema beach humming the famed Bossa Nova song, "Girl from Ipanema", by Antônio Carlos Jobim and listening to live, late night Samba music outside old Carioca bars on the tranquil side streets as the day's festivities came to an end. I was also lucky enough to go to the world renowned Sambódromo, an all night parade featuring the best samba schools with meticulous costumes and extraordinary floats (youtube videos to follow). And of course, being a good tourist, I took the train up to the top of the small mountain where the Cristo Redentor statue stands to look out over the entire city of Rio de Janeiro. As cliché as it sounds, the view is absolutely breathtaking.

So what is my advice to you? Rio? Yes. 100% you gotta go. Buy one of those special underwear fanny packs that you put under your pants though. Thats a necessity. I want to go back so if anyone wants a travel partner, you got me. Rio during Carnaval? For me, probably would not do it again. Is it something that everyone should experience? I don't think so. If you are into 5 day parties with beer showers and pee in between your toes than yes, by all means go for it. But really, Rio has so much to offer outside of Carnaval so why not just skip the chaotic madness and go during a calmer period.

I am going to post pictures, videos and all that good stuff but am still getting them organized. So stay tuned for those coming up next! I am off to the beach with my roommate and her friends for the weekend. Stay warm, or cool depending on the hemisphere. Beijos para todos!