Carnaval!

I ended up being stuck in BA for a further week, which wasn´t all bad. Got to see my friends a little longer and do some things I never got round to before.

I flew from BA to Rio, and was supposed to fly to Colombia for a few days but when I went to check in at Rio for my Colombia flight, they had no record of my booking. It was a good thing - as soon as I thought I'd booked my flight to Colombia, it struck me that forking out so much to have only 10 days there was no good idea. So it was a relief. And being stuck in Rio for Carnaval turned out to be fantastic.

To my surprise, I managed to find a hostel online from the airport. To no surprise, they'd crammed the punters in for Carnaval. Lining the walls of my dorm were hazardous looking 4 decker bunks, and air from the overworked and ancient fan in my dorm didn't reach my bed on the bottom level. And if I thought my room in BA was hot..... If you want to lose weight in your sleep, this is the place for you. Sleep wasn't too high on my agenda for the next few days, so no problema. The location was great - Ipanema. I'm not sure whether I saw the legendary Girl From Ipanema, On that section of the beach there were however plenty of Gays From Ipanema.

The word Carnaval is derived from carne (meat) and levare (raise), and owes its origin to the traditional practice (for some) during Lent of giving up meat. Nowadays, from what I gather, it's customary (for some) to give something up for Lent, whether that be a specific meat, red or white meat, meat in general or something totally unrelated to meat. Whatever, when you know you're going without something you're not used to going without, for 40 days, you have a blowout. Rio's is by no means the only festival. Salvador's is said to be better, and it's celebrated all over Brazil and throughout South America.

My friend Laura works for a tour company in London and they had a group in Rio as part of their tour around South America. A big group and a BIG party. Hard as it was to match the fun I had in BA, this was pretty out there. Rio´s a crazy city during Carnaval and a shock to the system after BA. I had a great time here but I don't know if I'd come back. On my first night, Laura and I were robbed as one guy stood over us with a broken bottle and his mates went through our pockets and emptied them. There was no point getting sliced or worse for the sake of a few bucks, and it happens. This is Rio at Carnaval. A lot of Cariocas get out for Carnaval, while there's a temporary influx of criminals and opportunists from outside the city. A hostel down the road from Laura´s hotel was taken over by a gang with guns and grenades and all the guests were made to open their safes and relieved of all their valuables. Apparently there were 3 places in Copacabana that had the same thing. Mental. In that context, for us it wasn´t so bad.

All the neighbourhoods have street parties ("blocos") all day, dancing and drinking and the occasional truck inching down the street blaring out music. The thing Rio´s Carnaval´s best known for is the Sambadrome, which is a huge competition involving teams from all different samba schools who design costumes and elaborate floats, some of them staggering in size. The samba schools spend months putting these together and working on their outfits and moves.

It´s an incredible spectacle and exceeded anything I thought might be the deal here. Our stand was at the end of where the procession finishes, and at the end of the parade all the performers ditch their costumes, so for the next couple of days and nights you see gringos all over the place in these weird costumes.

There is of course more to Rio than Carnaval. I'm getting some much needed sleep, going to Paraty to relax and recover for a few days, and coming back to see the sights before I go back to London.