CARNAVAL in Rio

Carnaval in Rio is definitely a crazy time. I was in town about a week before the major festivities began, so it was interesting to see the city come to life. During the busy days of carnaval, which is mostly Saturday to Tuesday, there were street parties with literally millions of people out on the streets. Sometimes they were so crowded you could be winding through a crowd for as far as the eye could see, it was ridiculous. Some of them were in a single area, some of them moved with some kind of parade or show. Some had music, and some were simple street parties where everyone just hung out.

Transportation was also crazy with so many people everywhere. With everything so far away I would take taxis, the metro, or the bus to get around. Taxis needed to watch out where they went, since they could easily be stuck on a blocked road. There were also never enough of them! If you were near a bloco, it was hard to find an empty taxi, and sometimes they would be on call or something so wouldn't pick you up anyway! The metro was super crowded, but ran fine. The only problem was the queues to refill your prepaid metro card were 30+ minutes long, so if you didn't have any money on your card it could be a huge pain. Buses were epic, since all the Brazilians seem to know the same songs and drunkenly sing at the top of their lungs and bang on the windows and walls in unison. Drinking on all these types of transportation is permitted and no authority figure ever tried to calm the party, so there's no stop to the drunken debauchery.

Many of the parties also consisted of everyone being half naked. With the beach sometimes nearby and the hot summer of rio, it was all too tempting for everyone. I gladly took part.

There wasn't just one party at a time, they were everywhere all over the city, and Rio is definitely not small. Some would be more popular than others, but you had so many options to choose from! It usually didn't take long to find one wherever you were. They did have brochures and information on where all the parties were and when they started if you wanted to know. This pic is just a small section. The 18th is when the fun really began, so that one went on for a few more columns.

After a street party, it would be a disaster area, but cleaners would clean everything up soon after. This made littering a normal occurrence. Done with your beer/cup/napkin/whatever? Drop it. No extra trash bins were provided so everything would just end up on the ground anyway once they started to overflow haha. Rio doesn't have the same campaigns as Texas apparently :p

Street parties were definitely my favorite part of carnaval, since they're big, fun, and free. There are many other events that I hear are pretty nice, but can get expensive, and I'd already been spending plenty. Tickets to the sambadrome to watch the parade and balls (which I think are just indoor smaller, classier parties?) were some things I didn't do.

One thing I did spend on was a costume to be in a samba school parade. Why watch when you can be a performer I thought. I spent what seemed like way too much money to order a costume back in December, since they were already starting to sell out then. They said I could pick it up when I got there. I should've picked up my costume before carnaval really started, but that slipped my mind so I ended up going to get it on the first craziest day, oops! After weaving through the crowds of the bloco on the street where I was picking up my costume, I finally got to the place and ended up in a waiting room while they fetched my costume. While waiting, I found some epic looking wings and started to play around with them.

Then when my costume finally arrived, the lady started to fit it on me while I continued to drink.

Then suddenly, she turns around, picks up the wings, and hooks them into the back of my costume. Holy shit those were my wings!?

Once it was made sure everything fit, we took the bus home to Copacabana to regroup with our costumes and then head over to meet up with the rest of the samba school.

In that picture the bus wasn't that crowded, but before we knew it there were tons of Brazilians singing and banging, and I had no idea how I was going to get those wings off the bus in the middle of Copacabana. When the time came, we all just got up and I slowly squeezed my way through the crowd with my massive wings as they chanted "gringo" at the top of their lungs haha.
Once home, I put on the costume in full force.

I don't have any pics from the parade since I didn't bring my camera, but I was with a friend who will probably post some soon so I can see a few. It was a great experience, but the costume was super uncomfortable and there was lots of waiting and hanging around with the other paraders before actually dancing (which was actually just doing whatever you wanted, it was completely unorganized, just fun) and pretending to sing (since I didn't have time to actually learn the samba song I was supposed to know lol) during the 1 hour parade through the sambadrome. It made me want to go back and actually watch an entire parade go by, since I only saw my own group of costumes, but I was having way too much fun at the blocos to take a break and watch samba for an entire evening.

Another fun activity I did was a favela party. A favela is a slum area where the poor people just start building, usually on the side of a mountain or some sort of land where the government usually won't care to take it back. By now some of the favelas have become so big they're more official anyway, but they don't start that way. One of the favelas has a little bar on the top where tourists like me can apparently go up and party. I didn't know what I was getting into as I went there with others from my hostel, but once at the bottom of the favela you have to take little mototaxis(just a motorcycle that you can ride on the back of) or a bus(vw 80s van) up to the top, unless you want to walk 20-30 minutes up a very steep road. I opted for the mototaxi, since it was so much fun! Once we got up there it was a great view of the Ipanema beach and mountains of Rio. We ended up staying until sunrise and got some great views.