My good friend Mark, who nowadays lives in London with his wife Vladka and their daughter Mila, invited me to join him and some friends to the Carnival in Brazil. Who would refuse? So by the end of January, 2006, we were on a plane and arrived in Sao Paulo. Pretty much straight on to the bus to Rio de Janeiro where we first found out that Carnival is a pretty big thing in Brazil. The first thing we noticed was that all hostels were fully booked and that prices were sky-rocketing.
On top of the Carnival there was also this special happening in Rio. Some concert... of the Rolling Stones at Copacabana... who would refuse? One.three million people attended, so many agreed this was a pretty unique chance. Mark and me are rather active travellers so the day the Stones hit the beach we set out relatively early to see the sights of Rio. One of my all time favourite places, one of the seven "wonders of the world" is the statue of Cristo Redendor, on Corcovado mountain. To get there you take a tram and when we arrived I was at first totally overwhelmed by the sheer heat up there! As if his holiness radiated it onto us all. The photgraphs I took, with my pretty straightforward and simple Olympus "throw away" digital camera are worth a lot to me. More about that later. That afternoon we went down to Ipanema (aaaah, what a great song, mas Linda) beach and caught some tan. Strolling along the Gulf of Rio de Janeiro (there is not actually a river there, this was mistaken by some explorer who moored his ships here one good January, around 1492, I guess... hence Rio de Janeiro) we slowly approached Copa Cabana, our goal for that evening. When the concert was about to start we found out we were actually behind the stage and we pushed into the masses from that side until we could go no further. We found ourselves about 50 meters from the main stage... not a bad thing, considering the 1.3 million.
The bigger bang tour started of with "Sympathy for the devil". Apparently the city council of Rio hires famous bands like Lenny Kravitz and Rod Stewart (with a record of 3 million in the audience) to make up for many things that go wrong in Rio. They got my sympathy all right.
At any big event in Rio and Brazil you need to take very good care of your belongings. Fee entrance means anybody can enter, including the favela dwellers... The advice is that you shouldn't bring anything with you to a crowded place, just some pocket money. We carried a full backpack with our day gear... Not too smart. There was some pushing now and then, but luckily, we got through the concert without being mugged, although there have definitely been a hand or two sliding into my pockets. Just checking, I suppose.
When we left the concert we first chilled out with some fellow admirers before trying to get on a taxi to take us to the hostel. We had eventually found one through the Casa Particular system in Rio. To get a taxi we had to be smart and walk through a tunnel where all taxi's entered to get to this one big square where everybody else was waiting for the cab. When we got on, we passed by a couple of thousand waiters before we went back through the same tunnel and got on our way to the hotel. We had to pay the ridiculously steep price of about 50US but I don't think we did, in the end. The driver was so eager to get back to catch more rides that he did not even check what we paid him... Sorry.
Mark had visited Rio before, during Carnival, and apparently in the "Sambadrome", you can watch all the dressed up wagons with their beautiful dancers and spend all night sitting on the tribune in awe... but there is not really a street party where you feel involved. Salvador the Bahia is the place to be! So next we took a plane to the Nordeste. First to Recife to be exact. From here we visited Olinda (a beautiful place which name refers to a time when the Dutch (Olanda) "owned" Brazil. But they were too busy fighting the English at sea so they had to leave this patch to the Portuguese, who are said to have colonized the country by very affectively killing all the men and raping all the women). Along the coast, south we went. Mark nearly drowned in a beautiful river that flows into the sea, barely surviving it's treacherous currents but somehow we made it to Salvador de Bahia in one piece. Salvador is built on the Bahia todos o Santos (pardon my Portugeuse) in a curious way. There is the "baixo" area harbour and the alto one that can be reach by riding this giant elevator...
At the upper part is where the Vieja (old) area was built and where during the daytime the children's Carnival takes place. Now that is my favourite part of all of Carnival. You will find out why later...
Mark and I, and some of his friends who were confusingly called Mark, Marco and Vincent... rented an apartment some half hour North of the city centre. On our first night we were gonna hit it hard! To do so we had to buy entrance tickets to this big hotel, from which balcony you could look down upon the wagons that rode by slowly. On these carts famous bands were featuring. Illustrious names like local hero Chiclette Banana, but also Fat Boy Slim (bet you were not expecting him at the Carnival... at least I was not...) The price of the tickets were about a hundred dollars but we were told this included food and drinks... so we didn't have to bring any money with. This went great with the plan of just wearing flip-flops and shorts. So we kept to the advice of not bringing anything this time. Only some pocket money and my camera of course! Can you already guess where this is going?
Now there are three ways you can enjoy this street Carnival in Salvador de Bahia. One is what we chose. Watching from a save distance, from a balcony, zipping a drink. You need a lot of money for this and locals may not have that much. Nor do we but we could manage for one night. The second way is to join in with one wagon and dance an party along through the streets. Also quite expensive and you will be with the same music and people all night. Save, inside a cordon of young men that wear gloves and hold a big rope in a large circle around the wagon. But not my kind of fun... with Fat Boy Slim, f*cking in heaven). The third way is to be popcorn. Standing along the road watching the wagons. For free! So out of the hotel we went that night. To taste the real street carnival atmosphere and join in with the locals! Dancing, drinking, partying. One problem is that when a wagon passes everybody gets pushed aside by the rope-holders to let the rich people pass so it can get a bit chaotic at times. And that's when white tall guys like me are easily sought out...
Along with Mark and Marco I stood watching when a group of about eight men started dancing around me, cheering me on. The same thing happened to M and M and we were pushed away from each other. The men started pulling my hands away from my pockets where I tried to firmly hold them, because in my one pocket was my camera!!! With my very dear pictures of Cristo and many more! So no way they were going to rob me of that! Now there are many people involved with safety on the streets an luckily one of the volunteer guards was close to me. A huge fellow that recognized the fear in my eyes and stepped in to rescue me. I was saved and stood trembling for a while. Staying close to him, hardly daring to cross the street! When I had pulled my act together I quickly made it back to the safety of the hotel and did not get out any more till much later... Only after I had learned about Mark's and Marco's faith, wallet gone, scary eyes, I found out that my watch had been stolen! Very inexpensive and bought in Damascus but nothing to be missed. I was just so happy I still had my photo's that go along with this story. Hope you like them too!
Next day we went up to Salvador vieja (Old Salvador) to enjoy the daylight children's carnival which was truly a delight. Looking back on this adventure I would say. Carnival in Brazil. You should experience it at least once in you life. Go ahead. Make the same mistakes... But beware.
