The Samba Parade, Part 3: The Spectacular.
On Sunday afternoon Ben and I were walking around Rio De Janeiro’s city center and saw that night’s Samba Parade floats still under construction! What… procrastination station! As we walked around taking picture, we joked that they had some major work to do… It looks like they pulled it off… To out stage one another, Samba parade floats often have some kind of mechanical moving part. In some cases a little menacing mechanical shark that emerges out of a pool to eat a Samba dancer will do. Oh no! Oh yes. Or maybe what a float really needs is a mechanical horse that gallops around a cottage? Of course this is Brazil so the rider must be topless! I think Ben must of took this picture. Some floats would spray bursts of glitter or colorful strings, but to really out do the competition you need a fountain flowing with water or some gorillas swinging from trees. Of course there were scores of celebrities, none of which I heard of because most of them were Brazilian. But there was one name that was familiar to me…Gisele Buendchen. She’s the one in gold in the front middle. I looked for Tom Brady after that in the stands with no luck. The only thing that is more fantastic then the floats are the samba dancers. Each school’s best Samba dancers can be easily spotted even from the top of the Grandstands. They are scantly clad; not wearing more then strategically placed sequences, a tong, a feathered headdress and wings. They are either leading legends of samba dancers or perched on tall pedestals atop giant float. Their feet moving at warp speed in 6-inch heels. But you don’t have to be a samba dancing beauty to get and keep the crowds on their feet. A street cleaner that broke into a samba while sweeping the streets during intermission received the loudest cheers of...
Read MoreOddities
Overall, Brazil is a lot more westernized than we expected. Of course we’ve been only in the south, and this is supposed to be the most westernized part. So everything is as it should be =) nonetheless, I’ve witnessed a view things a bit strange. This post is a collection of oddities, so hopefully its possible to follow my train of thought. I did a post on buses already, and how exciting city ones can be. One I thing I noticed is, the buses don’t always stop at the bus stop. They only stop when a passenger on the bus requests a stop, or if someone at a bus stop flags the bus down. Sometimes, even flagging the bus won’t make it stop. I watched a guy flag 4 separate buses before one stopped to let him on. Also, you have a limited window to exit the bus. I saw one elderly lady trying to exit the bus, and the driver started to take off, luckily everyone shouted and the bus driver gave her more time to exit. The showers here are nice. Everyone has in-line hot water. Which means, no cold showers in hostels! Something you aren’t always guaranteed when traveling, especially if you like to shower at peak times (mornings or nights). However, the in-line hot water is electrically heated, so basically there is a live circuit on the shower head, with exposed wires. Not a big deal, except to change the temperature means you adjust a knob on the top of the shower head. I adjusted it a little to far and received a pretty nice zap. No flushing tp. Despite the heat and humidity, the bathrooms don’t smell bad. Rains a lot! And Leah misses dryers to dry her clothes. Hanging clothes to dry can be difficult when you are in the rainforest. Some things are expensive! And some are cheap…. Meat…Cheap ($1 for a nice slab of beef) Mouthwash..Expensive ($8 for a small bottle) Fruit…Cheap Fruit Juice.. Expensive (weird) Cheese… Expensive And the last oddity… Bacon flavored popcorn?!? what? Yes, it is true, my life is now complete, I’ve found the holy grail of food. Some inventions are so obvious you kick yourself for not thinking of it...
Read MoreThe Samba Parade, Part 2: The Survival.
1.) What to wear? So what does one wear to a Samba parade? Answer: Anything or next to nothing if you wish… as long as your costume is not big. While in line, two Australian guys who looked like they walked out of a Samba parade, were asked to discard their costumes because of their size, heart breaking, but the stands were packed so the request was understandable. We kept our attire low key. Ben in his red and white poke-a-dotted onesie with discarded giraffe, elk hybrid hat… nothing but class. I in a curly purple wig and a silver Carnival mask I picked up at street vendor for 18 Reals. Another option is to run away and join the Carnival! To samba in the parade with one of the schools requires a costume that you can actually buy from them online! Once you have their outfit you can join the Samba Parade with that school. Costumes range anywhere from $195 to $1300 US Dollars plus the purchase of a Parade ticket ($100 US Dollars). 2.) When to arrive? We sat in Section 4, which is a General Admission Grandstand. Every $100 US Dollar seat had an amazing view but get there a few hours early if you want to grab a closer seat. The closer you are the more detail you can see in the elaborate costumes and the more you can feel the beat of the more then 300 samba drums. 3.) What to bring? Bring water and food in your backpack since the parade is eight hours long. You can leave whenever you want but the floats do seem to get progressively more spectacular as the night goes on so try to stick it out until the end. We didn’t bring snacks or water… clueless, so we ended up spending a small fortune. Beer and snacks are sold in the stands and in booths just like any US sporting event. Bring a poncho since umbrellas are discouraged because it obstructs the view. We only brought our umbrella and could only use it during samba school intermissions. Count on it raining, you are in Brazil, the land of Rain Forests. Bring or buy a seat cushion or follow the Parade program. Seat cushions are good way to stake your claim on seats during samba school intermissions. I, however, just followed the program and sat down after the last float went by guaranteeing myself a coveted spot during the intermissions… smart. 3.) What to know? The secrets no one tells you, but we will! Know your samba songs. Get on The Rio Carnival Guide website: http://www.rio-carnival.net/ or other similar websites and learn that year’s Samba songs. Everyone will be singing along to them. To feel like a true Carioca (Someone who is from Rio de Janeiro) you have to know at least the favorites to get by. Do not buy your tickets ahead of time. Many international tourists (Ben and I included) buy tickets for both Sunday and Monday. After barely surviving Sunday night, many tourists sell or even give away their Monday night tickets! We sold ours at a $50 dollar discount. In fact the guy we sold our tickets to ended up acquiring 2 more tickets for free! You can easily acquire them at a hostel or on...
Read MoreParadise Found!
I’d like to say we spent a lot of time reading our Brazil travel guide, or maybe we asked some locals, or surfed the internet and found it, but those would all be lies. Truth is, I looked at google maps and saw a town a good distance south (about 6 hours by bus) of Rio. It was named Ubatuba! sold. With a name like that how could it not be amazing. So we booked overnight bus tickets and left Rio around 11pm. After a 6 hour bus ride in the dark, through jungles, we arrived in Ubatuba at 5am. yep 5am. We hopped on the city bus and rode it to our hostel, the sun rose behind the jungle covered mountains as we approached our new home. With the peak season of Carnaval behind us, the prices for lodging have dropped significantly… we’ve moved into the off season for travel in Brazil. Yes! =) Our hostel is nestled on a remote beach 14km out of the small town of Ubatuba. The rooms are clean, the common area is huge, internet is fast, and the beach is all ours....
Read MoreNoemia’s Guesthouse – Santa Teresa, Rio de Janeiro
With the inflated prices for hostels due to carnival, we decided to stay in a guesthouse. A bread and breakfast of sorts. The house was in Santa Teresa: a small, hilly district just west of Lapa. Finding the house was a challenge, the streets were not on our map, nobody knew the street names, it was hot, we had our heavy backpacks on and there was a slight mist. The hills had intense slopes. Nearly vertical on cobblestone streets. It was a test of endurance and nerves, but after numerous conversations in a combination of broken Portuguese, English, and gestures we found Noemia’s Guesthouse. And our spirits were instantly lifted when we met Noemia and her family. Noemia is a single mother renting out the spare rooms in her home as her main means of living. Noemia instantly connected with Leah, and I think she warmed up to me after a little while. Noemia cooked soup, danced, and shared wine and stories with us for hours. It was an amazing experience. She showed us her prized interview video from when she hosted the band “In Living Color” at her house. At night, we walked down to the Sambadrome and watched the fireworks after each Samba school finished dancing. After each school was done, they discarded their costumes in the streets; free for the pillaging. Leah and I tried a couple costumes on for...
Read MoreThe Samba Parade, Part I: The Background.
The Samba Parades are the considered the highlight of Rio’s Carnaval. These Samba Parades are spectacular precessions of ornate customs and floats paired with riveting samba dancers, booming samba music, twirling flag bearers, and fireworks. Rio’s fourteen best samba schools parade on the Sunday and Monday night before Ash Wednesday, seven schools each night. Each Samba school is comprised of talented, very modest living people, many who live in Rio’s notoriously dangerous slums or Favelas. Every year they make difficult sacrifices by pouring a year’s worth of passion, creativity and labor into the hope that their 1 hour and 20 minutes parade will be the most dazzling, making their school the Pride of Rio and Brazil. It’s like high stakes poker; the jackpot is to be Champion for a year. The Samba Parades goes from 9 pm to 6 am. We went on Sunday night and in true Brazilian fashion it started at 11 pm. This would be like the equivalent of our Super bowl or Thanksgiving Day parade starting 2 hours late, but Brazil you soon discover is like your charming fashionably late friend. The Samba Parade takes place in the Sambodromo, which is marked by wishbone like arches on every map of Rio. It is located right off the Metro orange line’s Praca Onze stop. It sits in an enchanting neighborhood lined with food vendors and beer stands and where children as young as five can be seen running free in Disney princesses and Super Heroes customs. Parade programs written in both Portuguese and English were handed out upon entering the Sambodromo. They tell you every thing you need to know about the samba schools, their colors, themes, songs, samba wings, and floats. I found the program extremely helpful and interesting. Pee funnels were also handed out to the ladies… also interesting and...
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