All the food from Tuesday demanded I take another day of rest. So I went out to a beautiful beach in Niteroi called Itacoatiara. On the way I met a woman who has family in Toronto...we ended up chatting the entire bus ride and she introduced me to her friends at the beach.
Walking along the beach, I met this dude practicing Slackline.
His name is Enrico, he's a part of a crew that competes in national slackline competitions. Very inspiring to watch him on the slackline. And this guy makes slackline look easy. I tried getting up a few times, just standing up is difficult. It demands a lot of concentration, balance, strong knees, stabilizer muscles...I have to say it got me hooked. When I save up a bit of money, Im thinking of buying a line getting into this.
That evening I went back in Rio and went with Mariana and a couple of her friends to jazz bloco. Good company, good jazz, all-round good night.
After spending Sunday restoring my energy from Saturday's long day of parading, dancing and singing, Monday I was ready for some more.
I met up with my friend Mariana and some of her friends and headed out to what ended up being my favourite 'bloco' of my first carnival of life.
Bloco do Sargento Pimenta (English: Sgt Pepper's Bloco). These guys started their bloco last year with a turnout of about 10,000 people (after they had expected only a few hundred people to show up). This year, they went to a larger space expecting around 20,000...however, it was more like 60,000!
Beatles songs all day long: some of them in Portuguese, many of them with a slighly samba rythm to them, but all of them amazing.
We sang along to Beatles songs all day. There was even a marriage done on their stage. Not a proposal, a marriage ceromony followed by: "love, love love".
After this bloco we went to another called: Bloco Cru. Here a band played a bunch of alternative and classic rock covers. Also, a great show....all for free.
I needed another day to reenergize again. I realized how important it is to plan carnival strategically. Decide on the blocos you really need to check out, decide when you'll get in some shut eye and figure out which healthy foods you plan to eat in order to counter act the beer and junk food you find at every bloco.
I spent the day with Mariana at the beach....it was sad to see the beach completely littered from carnival. Plastic cups and bottles, aluminium cans and glass beer bottles were everywhere....
That evening after our dispointment at being unable to purchase tickets for a Jorge Ben Jor concert, Mariana and I met back up with her friends and treated ourselves to a restaurant called 'Restaurante Broz':
The good: Pizza, Crepes and Sushi all under one roof. The pizza and crepes are served 'rodizio' style. This is pretty common in Brazil. If you've been to a Brazilian churrascaria...they are often in this style. Waiters continuously swing by your table and ask if you'd like a slice of a freshly baked pizza or crepe. The pizzas and crepes come out at random with different toppings/fillings. If you want a particular pizza, just ask the waiter and an order will be placed. Then there's dessert pizzas and crepes. Yum. Oh and there's a sushi buffet (pay by the kilo), just in case you're not feeling the pizza/crepe combo. And the pizza rodizio costs you only R$23 (dinner)...that's about $14CDN.
The bad: They didnt have my all-time favourite dessert crepe...doce de leite with coconut.
The ugly: with so many good options, and the fact that you don't even have to get up from your table to get your food...it just keeps coming....well I have to say its difficult not to surpass your limits. I defintely ate too much that night.
6:30AM: The official start of Carnival begins with me waking up at my friend Cynthia's place. After eating breakfast and grabbing a coffee we head up to the beautiful neighbourhood of Santa Tereza. By the time we arrive, the party has already started.
By far, this parade is a whole lot better than Friday's. Nearly everyone is wearing a costume and you could tell that a lot of effort was placed in many people's costumes: Pac man, pirates, vikings, smurfs, insects, nurses, policemen, cavemen, babies, hippies, superheroes.
The music was also a significant improvement. There wasn't any singing, but instead people playing brass instruments: saxophones, trombones, trumpets...
A vendor asked me if I wanna buy a beer. I had only awoken some 2 hours ago. I had had a coffee not that long ago. And now, a beer? I couldn't bring myself to do it. But once I got into the crowd of people, well, you go straight into a party mode, and you forget what time it is and a beer seemed like a perfectly good idea.
A couple hours into the parade, I met up with my cousin who had dressed up as Jack Sparrow (to the tea). He and his friends had built a pirate ship out of cardboard and styrofoam. Six people fit into the ship! I made my way to the stern of the ship and enjoyed the rest of the carnival with a somewhat celebrity status. Everyone wanted to take pictures of the ship and the pirates, everyone wanted to get inside the ship, everyone giving compliments about the ship. Jack Sparrow particularly got a lot of attention. If my cousin didn't have a girlfriend, he could have easily kissed the most beautiful girls in the parade....and there were many beautiful girls in the parade.
After the parade had ended, we grabbed a bite to eat, and took a nap before heading over to the Sambodromo where we would parade with a Samba school.
At the Sambodromo:
I had never been to the sambodromo in my life. This is the avenue where the best samba schools in Rio (if not Brazil...if not the world!), parade down. And there I was about to walk down this avenue. We put on our costumes of 'beggars'. There were some 50 people dressed as beggars. The theme of the samba school this year was 'democracy in the park square'. The idea was to demonstrate a mix of all people from all walks of life together in one parade. In other sections of the school, people had ostumes representing different people in society: politicians, athletes, farmers (supposed to be representing the MST), merchants. There were huge cars with eleborate sets representing ancient Greece (for democracy), the park square, a huge set with a mother carrying her babies in a stroller.
We walked down the avenue for just over an hour. Singing the same tune over and over again. Smiling and dancing. Looking up to the crowd in the sambodromo and waving. Getting drenched in sweat underneath our heavy costumes.
By the time it ended, I was losing my voice. I have to say I am happy to have had this experience, but I have to admit that I think doing in once in a lifetime is enough for me. One day I'd like to go back to Sambodromo as a simple spectator to watch all the samba schools go by.
Below, I have included some photos of the entire day as well as a video from our samba school at the sambodromo.
