The night before... Mid way through the day we realise everyone is dressed up. We searched high and low with no luck of any costume inspiration. Finally, I decided on togas. Easy, cheap and to my surprise noone else was wearing one. Two Barbie pink sheets, some ribbon and white lais later we are ready for action. Lauren and I made Olly dress up with us. He was a team player and entertained our high sprits. It was a very random night, like a house party thats 10 blocks wide and nothing is taboo (here's where the guy nearly OD-ed)and us girls ended up staying up 'til breakfast the next morning. We started midday. Not a bad day in the office if I do say so myself.
1600 Buffet lunch and grocery shopping for snacks and vodka
1900 Without pretty dresses, water bottles filled with vodka, healthy snacks, cameras and faces adorned with feathery bright masks we were off... and lost. We fell a little bit behind everyone on the way to the Sambadrome. But made it safely ready to Samba. Here's where I couldn't find any other loos. I was bothered. Really bothered! The portaloos would be overflowing in an hour. I stopped drinking. BOO. Had I had any faith and asked someone, I would of found clean fully functional toilets! So gutted to find this out two days later
2100 The show starts and to my surprise we have to wait 40 minutes to see the first group of dancers. As the runway is so long it takes them this long to get to us. We were right at the end. The wait was worth it. I was in shock at the level of craftsmanship, talent, and most of all the passion each member displayed. I felt like a ...dream (if you're a rugby man like my dad I would compare it to a world cup final). Like a 3D movie without the annoying glasses. The colours, dancers, drums, horns, singers, feathers and sequins. I couldn't help but judge the choreography, costumes, music. After all I am a master of judging other people, and I love shows. I felt in some cases less is more! In saying that I don't quite understand the culture so my opinion is only that. But an unbelievable experience. Even though I would of seen more detail on the telly. Nothing else compares to real life. That's a big tick on my bucket list that's for sure
0200 By now we were sober and getting rather tired of people standing on our stuff, on us and not drinking of course. We decided to save 5 dollars each and walk. Not my idea. After 20 minutes we were lost and walked through two block parties. One was full of gay men. The boys felt uncomfortable. That's another interesting fact about Brazil. All the gay men. And why wouldn't they be, the men are hot. Anyway, some of us caught a taxi home, the others got home 30 mintues later (after telling us 'it's just 2 minutes down the road'). I wanted an early night because I want to be up early and fresh as a daisy
0300 Finished writing blog...finally bed time
So there you go. If you're into that kind of thing, come to Carnival in Rio. It's like Vegas on wheels with a very seedy down side. For me I don't think I'll be going back. I'm glad I did all the touristy sites, but without SUN it's not really a winner with me.
In Campo Grande now. Only three hours flight (23 hours by bus) and for the next four days I'll be living with anteatters, macaws, jaguars, paranas and ...zzz mozzies. Can't want to get to middle of The Pantanal.
